NEEDED: A NEW CONCEPT OF ACCOUNTS.
Abstract This is an era of experimentation and exploration in accounting. It parallels and is a portion of the same process which has given rise to innovations and developments in the social science of economics. Accounting like its sister science economics has belatedly begun to recognize that although the solution to each problem in the economic scene is limited and bounded by action taken relative to the solution of large problems, nevertheless, great potentialities for increase in economic well-being are possible through objective, piece-meal attacks on problems concerning the economy's units of activity, i.e., problems of individual business entities. To accomplish the many objectives of modern accounting-provision of data for financial statements, control, and special decisions of management-the art and science of accounts must be made more flexible, must be broadened, and must be deepened to accept within its ken increasing responsibilities for analysis and interpretation. The inordinate emphasis that has been placed upon single-purpose accounts and principles relating to such accounts must be replaced by a more scientific attempt to utilize accounts constructed so as to be of varied usefulness. Financial accounting as a device leading to the preparation of a questionable income statement and a more questionable balance sheet had its heyday in the first half of the present century. Accounting as a tool which embraces techniques of the statistician, the objective experimentalism of the engineer, and the concepts of the economist has great potentialities for serving the forward-looking purposes of management and investors beset on every hand by change in the social and economic scene. To be of greatest assistance in the solution of problems of private and public enterprise, there is a need for a broadened concept of the role of the accountant and accounts.
- DOI
- 10.2308/tar-7075365
- Volume
- 26 (4)
- Pages
- 481-484
- Language
- en
- Export
- BibTeX
- Sources
- openalex crossref