The article presents information about a Committee appointed by the American Accounting Association. The work of the Committee on Monographs during the year, 1943, has been devoted primarily to two projects. The first consisted of preparing a compilation of the releases and pronouncements on accounting matters issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Committee on Accounting Procedure and the Committee on Auditing Procedure of the American Institute of Accountants. The second project was the preparation of a monograph on the principles of consolidated statements. This monograph was written by Dr. Maurice Moonitz of Stanford University, and was reviewed and approved for publication by the Committee. The Committee has also given some attention to two or three other projects and manuscripts. The president of the Committee said that the educational institutions and programs are all being subjected to special stresses and difficult restrictions during the war. The programs of most colleges and universities in fields customarily followed by men have had to be materially curtailed or completely eliminated.

The article focuses on recommendations presented by the American Accounting Association's Committee on Concepts and Standards, regarding the use of term "reserve" in accounting. The committee recommended that the term reserve should not be employed in published financial statements of business corporations, appropriations of retained income should not be made or displayed in such a manner as to create misleading inferences, and the reserve section in corporate balance sheets should be eliminated and its elements exhibited as deduction-from-asset, or liability, or retained income amounts. In general usage, outside of accounting, a reserve is a fund of cash or other assets. In accounting the term has been used to caption a variety of balance sheet items including segregated retained income, segregated asset, asset valuation and asset amortization amounts, and liabilities. It has been recommended that the word reserve be restricted to captions describing appropriated retained income. The committee believes that the popular understanding of financial statements, and the thinking of the profession, would be promoted by abandoning the term.