Abstract The Executive Committee of the American Accounting Association has presented a tentative statement of principles, which deals with these questionable points. Everything that appears in this list could be definitely disposed of by every accountant if those principles, or rules, or standards, or conventions, or whatever you want to call them, were universally observed. But, if the universal observance of those particular rules and conventions and standards is not most desirable, then it behaves the accounting profession and those who are teachers and research workers in this field to decide what rules should apply. If qualifications and exceptions are necessary in connection with them, then the problem is to state them. It is a difficult, complicated task, but it is not impossible. Only our diffidence, our preoccupation with other matters, a certain degree of inertia in tackling these things, prevents our getting this job done in some satisfactory fashion. in some satisfactory fashion.

Abstract The article focuses on accepted principles of accounting. A person unacquainted with accounting or the work of professional accountants, might suppose that the accepted principles of accounting are embodied in definite form somewhere in accounting literature. He might expect to find an official document-a code, or set of regulations, or series of court decisions on the subject. In any field it may be true that the broad fundamental principles are so generally known and universally accepted that their formal statement becomes unnecessary. It is accepted without argument that the ordinary financial statement of a business enterprise is presented on a going concern basis, that conservative provision should be made for probable losses, while profits are not recognized until fully realized. There are a number of vital points, however, on which no such agreement exists. There is no official declaration covering them, and they are not covered positively and uniformly in the accounting textbooks or elsewhere in the literature of the profession. Accounting practice discloses only a complete uncertainty as to what constitutes the accepted principle which should be applied.