Abstract The most widely enunciated principle of income determination is that income is realized as the result of the sale of commodities or services. Concepts of "income" and "cost" are two of the most difficult in the whole field of economics and accounting to define in precise terms. Many incomes are earned as the result of the joint operations of two different fiscal periods, since only part of the services for which the final price is paid by the purchaser are performed in each period and part of the costs of furnishing these services falls into each. With the wide diversity found in different enterprises in methods of sale, types of sales contract, methods of production, and in collection methods it would seem reasonable to assume that no single test of income realization would meet all situations with the same degree of satisfaction. Accounting texts admit a number of situations which may need exceptional treatment but the number and importance of these situations is seldom accented and usually there is no open admission that another test of income has been applied. The author points out a wider range of business conditions and situations in which the sale test must be modified or other more adequate tests applied to arrive at the best measure of periodic profits, or of changes in economic positions.

Abstract For years the system of setting up a budget at the beginning of the fiscal period has been urged upon business conceits, as of September 1929. For a long time the advantages of the budget have been explained to all those who showed the least interest in the subject. Business men were told that the budget system would render a great service to the business in the fact that budgeting requires planning ahead. They were also told that the budget is the best help in coordinating all the activities of the various departments and the budget can be used as a means for centralized executive control. But in spite of all these arguments in its favor, the budget has never appealed strongly to the business executive. After a few years of experimentation with it, they came to the conclusion that it was not worth the money and the effort spent on it. Budgeting, these businessmen claimed, was nothing but guesswork. In addition these business men claim that the budget is after all no help to management as an instrument of control. For everyone in the concern very likely knows that the budget was a compilation of guesses and therefore could not be used as a standard.

Abstract One of the greatest events in accounting history was the International Congress on Accounting, held in New York during the week of September 9, 1929. Despite the variation in laws governing accountancy and in the forms in which accounting practice is conducts, a remarkable unanimity was recognized by everybody as existing in the problems faced by the profession throughout the world. There are two views rather definitely set professional auditing over against social economics; they contrast shareholder's desire for information concerning the remainders of original investments with managers' desires for information concerning the intricate details of profit making. To apply reproduction costs to the balance sheet would place the statement, therefore, in conflict with prudence and the sound principle of realized profit only. But on the other hand, the author points out, to apply only past costs in cost accounting would be to deprive the management of current information very necessary to proper market judgment, for competition is going to be most felt from those who most recently bought in the market and thus have secured a tangible new base for their pricing policy.