Knowledge that Transforms

Reviews the book "Introduction to Investment Analysis," by Kenneth Field.

The article focuses on the progression of accountancy in England. The English accountant is called upon to maintain during his professional career two sets of relationships. First, are those relationships, which are concerned with the accountant's immediate client with whom he comes in direct contact and by whom the accountant is hired. Such relationships are based upon contract and must consider the statutory provisions, which exist in reference to the audit. Second, there are intangible relationships, which involve indirect clients, those individuals whose presence is not disclosed to the auditor when he is preparing his statements and reports but of whose identity, at least as members of a class, he is aware. Direct clients include sole traders, partnerships and limited companies as well as all types of organizations, which according to English Law must submit their accounts to independent examination by auditors. Indirect clients encompass a much wider range of individuals, as they will include readers of financial statements and reports, potential investors, bankers, creditors, the public and the Government.

Reviews the book "Operating Results of Department and Specialty Stores in 1939," by Malcolm P. McNair.

Reviews the book "Applied General Statistics," by Frederick E. Croxton and Dudley J. Cowden.

Reviews the book "Manual of Teachers College Accounting," by Edward V. Miles.

The article presents information on recent developments related to accounting in various universities of the United States. S. Paul Garner, associate professor of accounting, has collaborated with professor G.H. Newlove of the University of Texas in the writing of a text entitled Elementary Cost Accounting, which is expecting to get published in January 1941. Chester K. Knight, professor of accounting, and currently secretary of the Alabama Society of C.P.A.'s, will address the Birmingham, Albama chapter of the National Association of Chartered Accountants next February. Professor E.J. Kirkham of the University of Illinois, and professor Ray Sadler of the University of Indiana, has received appointments as instructors in accounting. J.M. Charitori, instructor, has resigned to become an officer of the United States Army. The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California sponsored its second annual accounting institute on November 7, 1940. The general theme was Clarity, Brevity, and Realism in Reporting. Speakers, including participants as leaders of round tables, numbered well over thirty, and represented many lines of industry operating in the Los Angeles area.

The twenty-fourth annual convention of the American Accounting Association was held at the Adelphia Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 28-29, 1939. The president of the association opened the session with the following remarks: "We are assembled in the twenty-fourth annual convention of this group. We have come to the end of our fourth year as the American Accounting Association. It is customary for the president to present to the annual meeting some report of the Association's activity during the year. It is on the record of the year 1939 that I wish to comment briefly." "For the purpose of establishing a background against which to evaluate the current performance, it may be well for you to have some reminder of what has gone before. In December of 1935 at New York, the American Association of University Instructors in Accounting was reconstituted as the American Accounting Association." In the development of accounting research the Association stands ever ready to lend all help within its power. Cooperation with any and all interested individuals or groups or associations is assured. It was the hope of those who were instrumental in changing the character and name of the Association in 1935 that the Association would ultimately become the one organization recognized as most fully representing the study of accounting as a field of learning.

Accountants have been troubled in recent months over their responsibility in the matter of auditing inventories. It now appears to be settled that whenever no physical verification of inventories has been made, the auditor's report will contain an appropriate qualification. Furthermore, it is not an unreasonable prediction that auditors will become more and more insistent upon physical verifications. Inventories are the life-blood of an enterprise organized for profit; but this is not the case in an organization devoted to the task of furnishing public services. In the field of municipal government the primary revenue source is from taxes levied on property valuations. Inventory verification has a peculiar application in municipal post audits. Procedures outlined in the article should not be unduly expensive. And if the result of this addition to the municipal audit is to help obtain assessments reasonably close to full value, the outlay should be returned to the municipal treasury many times over. If gross inequities and low-ratio assessments go hand-in-hand, the social values of this auditing addendum should be given due weight in determining its usefulness. Of course, whether or not full-value results can be obtained is a moot question. There can be little doubt, however, that the additional auditing procedure would be a step in this direction.

Reviews the book "Papers on Auditing Procedure and Other Accounting Subjects."

Reviews the book "Organization and Management of Production," by William N. Mitchell.