Knowledge that Transforms

Abstract The article presents accounting case of Underwood Elliott Fisher Co. The enterprise, one of the leading manufacturers of business machines, was incorporated on March 8, 1910, in Delaware under the name of the Underwood Typewriter Co. On December 29, 1927, the name was changed to Underwood Elliott Fisher Co. The corporation manufacturers typewriters and flat-surface accounting and writing machines, including the Elliott Fisher with flat platen and the Underwood and Sundstrand with cylindrical platen. A subsidiary manufactures tally rolls, carbon paper, ribbons and other supplies for the machines of the parent company. The company's products are marketed primarily through branches in the U.S. and through dealers in foreign countries. During the past ten years the surplus accounts of the Underwood Elliott Fisher Co. has undergone two complete cycles involving transfers between earned surplus and capital surplus, arising in the first instance out of the virtual elimination of intangible assets from books of the company.

Abstract In the September issue of the journal The Accounting Review under the title, "Deficiencies in Federal Accounting," it was discussed, among other things, the question as to whether budget accounting should be a part of the general accounting system. The journal took the negative position on this question. The early development of governmental accounting seems to have been along lines generally similar to those of commercial accounting. It was in the Handbook of Municipal Accounting that certain distinctions were more clearly recognized. Among these was an adequate accounting for budget operations, in such form as to indicate the position of the budget at all times. This meant an accounting for encumbrances, since such items must be allowed for in order to show current budget condition. The disadvantage of this procedure came gradually to be understood, as well as the possibility of bringing the two sets of records together. By 1930 the use of a consolidated system, in which the budgetary transactions are an integral part of the general accounting system, was recognized and applied in many places. The control of budgetary operations in the general accounting system does not necessarily mean the inclusion of complete budgetary accounts in the central accounting records.

Reviews the book "Effective Business English," by Robert Aurner.

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

Abstract 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.

Abstract 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.

Abstract 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.