Knowledge that Transforms

As accountants, educators and executives, one is engaged almost continuously in the preparation of financial reports. One is convinced of the significance of financial reporting as a basis for intelligent executive action, and the importance of seeing that all reports contain the proper information and are designed to be of maximum use to the members of management who they are submitted. In this article the author reviews some of the principles and practices, which can be followed to render such reports as helpful and effective as possible. There are three levels of management to which financial reports must be made, top management, coordinating executives, and operating supervisors. The reports required by each vary in subject matter and in amount of detail, but the principles of reporting to each level are essentially the same. If the reports for top management should be comprehensive and concise, then so much the more should reports to operating supervisors be specific and concise, for the daily routines of production and selling demand that the supervisor be a man of action rather than an analyst.

Reviews the book "Audit Working Papers," by C. Oliver Wellington.

Reviews the book "Bookkeeping and Accounting," by Fayette H. Elwell, Vachael E. Breidenbaugh and Angeline G. Lins.

This article proposes to investigate, review, and analyze the data which have been compiled on the subject of profitability in relation to size to determine the foundation on which the statement of large corporations being unprofitable has been based, and to comment on the validity of the assertion as it relates to the relative profitableness of corporations of different size. Such an analysis must necessarily be limited to the objective material available and will not enter into the broader discussion of the social and economic evils usually associated with, and often attributed to, monopoly or big business. No attempt will be made to evaluate the proposition that large-scale business necessarily results in a power position which is so antisocial that a reduction in size would be warranted, regardless of the possible outcome for efficiency and profitability. Such matters can be settled satisfactorily only after long investigation and will involve complex analyses of broad social policy.

Reviews the book "Consolidated Financial Statements: Principles and Procedures," by William Herbert Childs.

Reviews the book "Accountant's Working Papers," by Leslie E. Palmer and William H. Bell.

Reviews the book "Social Accounts and the Business Enterprise Sector of the National Economy," by F. Sewell Bray.

Reviews the book "Audits and Examinations, Standards and Procedures," by Christian Oehler.

Reviews the book "Materials on Accounting," by Robert Amory.

Standard cost accounting began as a specialized branch of accounting, in a large degree divorced from the main roots, the general accounts. Gradually, over the years, accountants have endeavored to utilize the benefits of standard costing within the traditional debit-credit system. In the process of integrating this new tool with the methods and aims of financial and cost accounting, the attempt has been to retain the aims originally set forth for standard costing and the aims originally established for financial accounting, unchanged, on a parallel or complementary footing. The principal goal of this paper is to place standard cost accounting, its aims and methods, in proper perspective within the scheme of accounts. The attempt is to show how maximum benefits from standard costing may be achieved by a process of integration with financial accounting, an integration particularly of aims. A further goal is to indicate the usefulness of standard costing to the newly accepted objective of cost accountants, the accomplishment of special cost studies.