Accounting is a useful art which probably needs to be used more than it is, but it is possible to do too much accounting and thus waste resources. An example of what appears to be accounting for accounting's sake is the prescription for the world-wide accounting and reporting in the Department of Defense of Departmental Census of Housing constructed with the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) foreign currencies. It should be eliminated along with its attendant intricate accounting and reimbursement procedures by the Department of Defense (DOD). A simple reimbursement procedure at Departmental level would provide an inexpensive way of doing business. In order that the U.S. military departments retain trained and skilled personnel, important consideration must be given to morale. A significant facet of maintaining this morale factor among military personnel is the provision of adequate and suitable family housing. This is especially true in overseas areas where dependents are authorized to accompany the military member.

The shift in emphasis by the accounting profession from the statement of financial condition to the income statement, and more recently to a management approach has been associated with a rise in the relative importance of investor and manager groups and an increasing realization of the usefulness of quantitative data in making executive decisions. Accounting for the consumption of long-lived assets has been influenced by these changes in emphasis and this has led to considerable disagreement and confusion regarding certain problems related to depreciation. Many schemes have been advanced for transferring the expired cost of depreciable assets to operations. At one extreme a few businessmen have been influenced by the payout technique for budgeting capital items and advocate the immediate transferal of the entire cost upon incurrence to expense. The article laid the foundation for the development of a theory of depreciation with objectives reflecting the current emphasis in accounting. The theory is based upon recommended principles of economics and accounting and it satisfies the decision-making requirements of management.

Of the two methods of liberalized depreciation specifically authorized for income-tax purposes by the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, the declining balance method has apparently been the overwhelming choice of the many utility companies in the United States, which have adopted an accelerated method of depreciation. The reason for the general preference for this method over the sum of the years-digits method cannot be determined precisely, but it is believed that the explanation lies in the widely publicized provision, which allows the company adopting the declining balance method to change to the straight-line method at any time without prior permission of the Revenue Commissioner. When the declining balance method of depreciation is used with groups of property, as is the typical case in public utility accounting, there is no great advantage to be gained by changing to straight-line depreciation. Studies of the behavior of property groups indicate that there is little basis for assuming that a property group will live to average life and be abruptly retired. The probability of retirements from a group of property coinciding with such a predicted retirement pattern is extremely small. There is no provision in the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 or in the regulations, which permits shifting from the declining balance method of depreciation to an amortization scheme.

Reviews the book "Systems and Procedures for Automated Accounting," by Clarence B. Randall, Sally W. Weiner and Maynard S. Greenfield.