This article focuses on the difficulty in understanding the concept of consolidation eliminations by the students. Consolidation eliminations are necessary when a company's bonds are held by an affiliated company, even though the same students have little trouble with entries necessary to eliminate profits on intercompany inventory sales and fixed asset constructions. Because of this seemingly inevitable difficulty, for the past several years writers have expanded on the usual textual treatment in order to explain certain underlying relationships. This expansion results in much less confusion and a better basic understanding of why a given elimination entry is necessary. Students usually have no trouble understanding the 1/10th eliminations against bonds payable and discount on bonds payable and the need to eliminate the corresponding investment account. The consolidated entity must recognize an otherwise unrecognized loss on bond reacquisition. That is the nature of the charge or credit to retained earnings.

The article focuses on "quipu," a record-keeping device used by the Inca Indians, one of the more interesting old civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. Incas provide one with another fascinating story of the development of accounting. The modern accountant, surrounded with his electronic equipment, needs the perspective provided by an awareness of the simple tools used by record-keepers of the past. The present is often much more meaningful when one understands the past. The presence of electronic equipment especially is more thought provoking when considered in the light of the quipu, a simple Incan counting device of knotted strings widely used less than five hundred years ago. The knot record consisted of a main cord to which were attached knotted pendent cords. Knots on the hanging strings recorded, for example, the number of people in a village or the inventory in a storehouse. On these pendent cords, knots would be made, and these knots represented different numbers, their value depending mostly upon their distance from the main cord.

The purpose of this article is to present a much-abbreviated summary of the types of records kept by the ancient Mesopotamian people. This purpose is accomplished by the presentation of appropriate tablet translations. Admittedly, much faith has been placed in the translating skill of archeological experts, but the author of this article has painstakingly compared hundreds of translations and only the typical, semi-standard ones are presented here. The ancient Mesopotamian record-keeping system was a very simple system based mostly upon receipts, expenditures, listings, and contracts. Receipts tablets had to be prepared whenever any money or goods were received in the temple, in the palace, or in private businesses, even if it meant going to the expense of calling in a public scribe to record a single, small transaction. Internal movements and inventories of these items had to be duly recorded, as did the final use or expenditure. The translations in this article are merely illustrative, not exhaustive.

The article reviews the book "Accounting in the Golden Age of Greece: A Response to Socioeconomic Changes," by George J. Costouros.