Double-entry bookkeeping, Programming, Accounting

Abstract This article presents a study on a system dynamic approach to human resource accounting in the U.S. It seems inevitable that increasing concern with socioeconomic matters will continue to force accountants to try and include material on the externality effects in accounting statements. As this material gets more comprehensive, it will reach a point at which the supplementary material will give the lie to the conventional interpretation of the normal accounts. It can be seen that not only is this future productivity dependent on retraining the worker's services, but also it will be necessary to maintain at the least his or her level of skill over the intervening period.

Abstract The article compares the various effects of the two methods of inventory valuation, namely, last in, first out (LIFO) and first in, first out (FIFO), with those produced by a model of complete certainty. This model equates profits with the internal rate of return needed to reduce all the cash flows to the present value of the investment in the enterprise. The model of complete certainty does not value the individual assets but rather it puts a value on the whole enterprise, including its positive or negative goodwill. The considerable argument which occurred over LIFO vs. FIFO some years ago was almost entirely literary in content, and if the results of using both methods can be compared with the true result, it may be that some conclusions can be drawn as to which method of approximation may be most suited to a particular circumstance. It is true to say that the profits shown under FIFO and the correct profits are both partially unavailable for distribution. LIFO overcomes this to the extent it is able to ignore the initial purchase of goods, which is carried forward as inventory, while otherwise recognizing profits on a cash basis only.

Abstract A subtle confusion seems to have arisen in some recent attempts to apply the technique of input-output analysis to the activities of the individual enterprise. This is because the analysis was developed originally as an econometric technique for macro-economic purposes. Essentially, econometrics views a system as a black box whose real workings can only be approximated. Thus, national input-output accounts are prepared by dividing the economy into meaningful sectors and attempting to reconstruct the income and expenditure of each sector, in currency terms, analyzed amongst all sectors of the economy. Expressing this data in matrix form and then dividing the various inputs by the total output at selling price of the relevant sector then arrive at so-called technical coefficients. Standard costs are built upwards from the lowest basic operations, while econometric parameters are broken downwards from aggregated material; standard-cost data do purport to illustrate the operation of the system, while econometric parameters are just weightings which happen to explain the right-hand side of the equations in terms of the selected variables.