The 1955 American Accounting Association Committee assigned to the task of revising the 1948 Statement of Corporate Accounting Standards undoubtedly spent much time and effort in making this revision, and the bulk of their achievement is to be highly commended. However, there is one conclusion that is most surprising and disappointing, and could only cause confusion in the minds of the readers of corporate accounting statements. This is the statement with regard to Part IV, Income Determination, as follows: Interest charges, income taxes, and true profit sharing distributions are not determinants of enterprise net income. The profession is now faced with this surprising and really confusing recommendation of the Committee that corporate net income should not take into consideration interest charges, income taxes or profitsharing distributions. However to argue that interest charges and income taxes are not costs of carrying on a business enterprise and determinants of net income, is to propose a concept of corporate net income which is illogical, contrary to common sense and contrary to universal business practice.

The advent of electronics in record-keeping and data-processing has placed the office equipment industry in the most challenging, yet potentially rewarding, role in its history. And the same thing can be said for accountants. Electronics is a new mode of transportation. Because of its tremendous speed in carrying out the errands, the electron can take one just about anywhere, statistically speaking. This revolution in office procedures and data-processing, promises to do for man's mind what the industrial revolution did for his body. By harnessing the electron, one will be able to multiply a single clerical employee's efforts many times. In a few more years American business would have been figuratively snowed under by its ever mounting volume of paperwork. At the start of the 20th century, only one man in every 40 employees was a paper worker. With pen and ink as his chief tools, this early-day clerical was able to keep up with all of the demands placed on accounting by business.

1. There is significant correlation between the ACE total, quantitative, and linguistic scores and the AIA-I scores. The most consistent covariation obtained in the case of the total score rather than the quantitative or linguistic scores. 2. Students who scored below the median on the ACE total test averaged a higher percentile rank on the AIA-I test than would have been predicted from the ACE score, indicating possible over-achievement. 3. Students scoring above the median on the ACE total test averaged on the AIA-I percentile ranking approximately on par with their average ACE percentile ranking, indicating that achievement was on the level predicted by the ACE test. In conclusion, the ACE is a relatively accurate predictor of achievement in accounting as measured by the AIA-I.

A report of the activities of the American Accounting Association for 1957 offers problems similar to those encountered in accounting for inventories and for cost of goods finished in a manufacturing concern. The purpose of this report is to furnish the membership with a brief description of what the Association is doing and some of its plans for the future. The primary emphasis by the Association over its life has been on accounting education and accounting research although other accounting areas are not neglected. This continuing emphasis on education and research is quite apparent in the description which follows. The Committee on Accounting Concepts and Standards completed its revision of the 1948 version of Accounting Concepts and Standards Underlying Corporate Financial Statements. The quarterly publication "The Accounting Review," has continued to expand and improve over the years, and has become recognized throughout the world as a leading accounting periodical. During the year hundreds of individuals who receive it, including many not engaged in teaching, have complimented the Association on the quality of the content of this publication.

Reviews the book "Principles of Accounting-- Introductory," by H.A. Finney and Herbert E. Miller.

Reviews the book "An Outline of Accounting," 4th ed., by Louis Goldberg.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting," 5th ed., by John J.W. Neuner.

Economists have long realized that over the years much of the impulse to write anew about economic principles originated in the mood of the times. This awareness of the relativity of economic thought to its time of appearance has produced a special literature history of economic doctrine. The focus of interest in accounting however has for centuries been turned toward its usefulness in practical affairs. Its evolutionary development has been strongly influenced by that fact. Its service from the beginning has been that of expressing and systematically organizing the data of economic acts and business decisions stated in quantitative terms. The acceptability of that kind of service has been so positive that the literature has been concerned with improved technology and the professionalization of independent auditing. Although the recording methodology which developed into accounting is usually called double-entry bookkeeping, a much more descriptive name would be "Italian capital-income accounting." That phrase carries a deeper significance than duality. For dual entry and equality of trial balance totals are very superficial aspects of accounting technology.

Accounting is a technology that has developed very recently. With accounting, as with any technology in the process of development, there has been of necessity a good deal of uncertainty as to the best way to do things, and indeed what are the precise things that accounting can be expected to do. The practitioners of a developing technology must continually be on the lookout to devise new and better ways to handle situations already faced and to be ingenious enough to contrive acceptable solutions to new and trying sets of circumstances. The paper takes the position that accounting principles and procedures and standards have developed to the degree that now "an orderly array of interrelated ideas and interconnected reasons" must be attempted if accounting is to realize its full potentialities in serving the business and social ends of which it is capable and which is also its obligation. One characteristic of the U.S. accounting has been that it has been very slow in developing the philosophy that accounting must assert itself as being independent of management. The article gives attention to the conditions under which accounting has developed in the U.S. and how these conditions have contributed to the lack of assertiveness and have influenced considerably what are considered to be the functions of accounting.

Reviews the book "Overhead Costing," by R. Lee Brummet.