Knowledge that Transforms

The purposes of accounting instruction in universities and colleges, although manifold and dependent upon innumerable circumstances, may be grouped into two major classifications. These two classifications are the social purposes and the private purposes. Some might point out a third group of purposes, that is, those growing out of the needs of particular institutions as affected by their character and location, but ordinarily these latter facts merely influence the social and private purposes and do not form a third group. Of the two groups, the social purposes should be considered the more important. To bring out the social function of the subject should be the most important purpose of accounting instruction. Accounting instruction not only serves the two private purposes, the vocational and professional, directly, but it has an additional private purpose. The accounting instruction is a foundation stone in any course in commerce or business administration. Thus persons enrolling in a commerce course, and whose ambition is to become business men, partake of this instruction and can use it later to their own individual advantage.

Reviews the book "Elements of Accounting," by Edmund Berrigan.

Transactions variously described as trades, exchanges, or "deals" are very common in the real estate business. The difficulties which such transactions present for the accountant are due to a number of circumstances. In the first place, these dealings follow no rules. Each one is a law unto itself. They do not readily fit into any system of bookkeeping, no matter what preparations have been made to care for every possible contingency. Very often they involve immediately neither cash receipts nor disbursements. Sometimes they are not even evidenced by a formal agreement between the parties, although they always should be. Even when the agreement exists, it is often ignored in some details. Thus it is sometimes very difficult to find out what actually has happened. A common occurrence is the assumption of liabilities the precise amount of which is determinable only in the future, so that the original entry for the transaction must be tentative, either estimating the amount of the liability in order to obtain the cost of the property exchanged and hence the profit or loss on the transaction, or waiting until such time as the liability is determined before attempting a reckoning of the final results. One of the chief difficulties is that the agreements cannot ordinarily be taken at face value for accounting purposes, even if to the letter they are carried out. This article presents several cases which highlight these issues.

According to the article author, the term "bookkeeping approach," is a misnomer. Much more is involved than the term implies. It should be called the accounting foundation, without which no real worthwhile accounting superstructure can ever be built. The subject of bookkeeping approach really resolves itself into a question of bookkeeping method. Book-keeping method and pedagogy constitute the "open forum" in commercial work today. There is an increasing feeling among book- keeping teachers that "all is not well in educational Egypt." Many of the most progressive teachers are realizing that we have never got to first base in the development of a mound bookkeeping pedagogy. Bookkeeping is to-day an acknowledged factor in secondary education. It has acquired its present permanent footing in the face of determined criticism and opposition on the part of many educators. And very few subjects have in so short a time obtained such a firm and universal footing in high school curricula. In the beginning, the high school Inherited the textbooks, the teachers, and the methods of the business college. Measured by present educational standards, all of these were extremely inadequate. Thanks to a number of conditions, the teaching element has greatly improved.

Reviews the book "Chain Store Accounting," by Howard C. Greer.

In a manufacturing business, according to the author's view, there are only two primary and fundamental activities, which should be made to embrace all operating factors and the costs attached to them, the two activities are those of production and distribution. Management and administration in a manufacturing business or in any other business, are not ends in themselves. In manufacturing the administrative function must concern itself either with problems of production or problems of distribution. Financial activities of an internal nature over which management has control must also be viewed as assisting production and distribution in the proportion that these two fundamental divisions utilize the funds of the business. It is generally admitted that modern cost accounting methods lead to an accurate knowledge of product cost, costs which express themselves in the various inventories of manufactured product, and, of course, in the inventories in process. Cost accounting methods also enable one to recognize and give effect to all the variable production factors that enter into the manufacture of a variety of goods.

Reviews the book "Business Management--An Introduction to Business," by Percival White.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting for Sales," by Joseph R. Hilgert.

Reviews the book "Bank Audits and Examinations," by John I. Millet.

Reviews the book "Investment Trusts," by Lawrence M. Speaker.