Historical Cost Concept And Money Measurement Concept Accounting Essay

Assetss and services are recorded at their purchase cost and that the accounting record of the assets continues is to be based on cost instead than on current market value. By stipulating that assets be recorded at cost, this rule besides governs the recording of liabilities and proprietor equity. The implicit in footing for the cost rule is the dependability rule. Cost is a dependable value for assets and services because cost is supported by completed minutess between parties with opposing involvements. Buyers try to pay the lowest monetary value possible, and Sellerss try to sell for the highest monetary value. The existent cost of an plus or service is nonsubjective grounds of its value. ( Charles T. Horngren et al. 1995, pg.483 )

Companies record assets at their cost. This is true non merely at the clip the plus is purchased, but besides the clip the plus is held. Critics contend that the cost rule is irrelevant. They argue that market value ( the value determined by the market at any peculiar clip ) is more utile to fiscal determination shapers. Advocates of the cost rule counter that cost is the best step. The ground: Cost can easy be verified, whereas market value is frequently subjective. ( Jerry J. Weygandt et Al. 2008, pg.8 )

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Money Measurement Concept ( or Monetary Principle )

Accounting information has traditionally been concerned with merely those facts covered by ( a ) and ( B ) which follow:

It can be measured in pecuniary unit

Most people will hold to the pecuniary value of the dealing.

This restriction is referred to as money measuring construct, and it means that accounting can ne’er state everything about a concern. For illustration, accounting do non demo the followers:

Whether the concern has good or bad directors,

Whether there are serious jobs with the work force,

Whether a rival merchandise is about to take away many of the best clients,

Whether the authorities is about to go through a jurisprudence which will be the concern a batch of excess disbursal in the hereafter.

The ground for ( degree Celsius ) to ( f ) or similar points are non recorded is that it would be impossible to work out a pecuniary value for them which most people would hold to. Some people think that accounting and fiscal statements tell you everything you want to cognize about a concern. The above show thatit shows otherwise. ( Frank Wood & A ; Alan Sangster 2009, pg.110 )

Accounting information is expressed chiefly in pecuniary footings. The pecuniary unit is the premier agencies of mensurating assets. This step is non surprising, given that money is the common denominator in concern minutess. In the United States, the pecuniary unit is the dollar ; in Great Britain, the lb sterling ; in Japan, the hankering. The stable-monetary-unit construct provides an orderly footing for managing history balances to bring forth the fiscal statements.

Unlike a litter, a pes, and many other measurings, the value of the pecuniary unit may alter over clip. Most of us are familiar with rising prices. Grocery stores that cost $ 50 a few old ages ago may be $ 60 today. The value of the dollars alterations. In position of the fact that the dollar doesn? keep a changeless value, how does a concern step the worth of assets and liabilities acquired over a long span of clip? The concern records all assets and liabilities at cost. Each plus and each liability on the balance sheet is the amount of all the single dollar sums added over clip. The stable-monetary-unit construct is the comptroller? footing for disregarding the consequence of rising prices and doing no restatements for the altering value of the dollar. ( Charles T. Horngren et al. 1995, pg.484 )

Monetary rule requires that companies include in the accounting records lone dealing informations that enables accounting to quantify ( step ) economic events. The pecuniary rule is critical to using the cost rule. This premise prevents inclusion of some irrelevant information in the accounting records. For illustration, the wellness of the proprietor, the quality of the service, the morale of the employees are non included. The ground: Companies can non quantity this information in footings of money. Though this information is of import, lone events that can be measured in money are recorded. ( Herry J. Weygandt et Al. 2008, pg.9 )

The Business Entity Concept ( or Accounting Entity Assumption/Concept )

Personal businesss of a concern are to be treated as being quite separate from the non-business activities of its proprietor ( s ) .

The points recorded in the books of the concern are, hence, restricted to the minutess of the concern. No affair what activities the owner ( s ) acquire up to outside the concern, they are wholly disregarded in the books kept by the concern.

The lone clip that the personal resources of the owner ( s ) affect the accounting records of a concern is when they introduce new capital into the concern, or take drawings out of it. ( Frank Wood & A ; Alan Sangster 2009, pg.110 )

Entity construct is the most basic construct in accounting because it draws a boundary around the organisation being accounted for. That is, the minutess of each entry are accounted for individually from minutess of all other organisations and individuals, including the proprietors of the entity. This separation allows us to mensurate the public presentation and the fiscal place of each entity independent of all other entities.

A concern entity may be a exclusive proprietary ( owned and operated by a individual person ) , a partnership of two or more individuals, or a big corporation such as Exxon. The entity construct applies with equal force to all types and sizes of organisations.

The entity construct besides provides the footing for consolidating subentities into a individual set of fiscal statements. ( Charles T. Horngren et al. 1995, pg.493 )

If the minutess of an entity are to be recorded, classified and summarised into fiscal statements, the comptroller must be able to identity clearly the boundaries of the entity being accounted for. Under the accounting entity premise, the entity is considered a separate entity distinguishable from its proprietor and from all other entities. It is assumed that each entity controls its assets and incurs its liabilities. The records of assets, liabilities and concern activities of the entity are kept wholly separate from those of the proprietor of the entity every bit good as from those of other entities. A separate set of accounting records is maintained for each entity, and the fiscal statements prepared provide information on that entity merely.

The accounting entity premise is of import since it leads to the derivation of the accounting equation. Given this premise, if the entity receives $ 50000 hard currency from the proprietor as capital, the comptroller for the entity records that it has an plus of $ 50000 in the signifier of hard currency but besides has to recognize that the entity is now indebted to the proprietor for $ 50000. In other words, the proprietor has an equity in the assets of the entity and it follows that:

Assetss = Equity

Similarly, if the entity borrows hard currency from a loaner, the plus ( hard currency ) increases, and the entity must admit this involvement of the creditor in the entire assets of the entity. The equation would now be expressed as:

Assetss = Liabilitiess + Equity ( John Hogett et Al. 2006, pg.40 )

The Time Interval Concept ( or Accounting Period Assumption / Principle ) One of the implicit in rules, the clip interval construct, is that fiscal statements are prepared at regular intervals of one twelvemonth. For internal direction intents they may be prepared far more often, perchance on a monthly footing or even more often. ( Frank Wood & A ; Alan Sangster 2009, pg.109 )

Time-period construct ensures that accounting information is reported at regular intervals. This timely presentation of accounting informations AIDSs the comparing of concern operations over clip ; from twelvemonth to twelvemonth, one-fourth to one-fourth, and so on. Directors, proprietors, loaners, and other people and concerns need regular studies to measure the concern? success or failure. These individuals are doing determinations daily. Although the ultimate success of a company can non be known for certain until the concern liquidates, determination shapers can non wait until settlement to larn whether operations yielded a net income.

About all companies use the twelvemonth as their basic clip period. Annual studies are common in concern. Companies besides prepare quarterly and monthly reports-called interim reports-to meet directors? investors? and creditors? demands for timely information.

The time-period construct underlies the usage of accumulations. Suppose the concern? accounting twelvemonth ends at December 31 and tomplhe concern has accrued-but will non pay until the following accounting period. ( Charles T. Horngren et al. 1995, pg.493 )

All entities need to describe their consequences in the signifier of either net income or operating excess. Net income is determined for peculiar periods of clip, such as a month or a twelvemonth, in order to acquire comparison of consequences. There are besides statutory demands for entities to find periodic net income figures, e.g. for revenue enhancement. This division of the life of the entity into equal clip intervals is known as the period premise.

As a consequence of this premise, net income finding involves a procedure of recognizing the income for a period and subtracting the disbursals incurred for that same period. ( John Hogett et Al. 2006, pg.41 )

Traveling Concern Assumption

It is assumed that the concern will go on to run for at least 12 months after the terminal of the coverage period.

Suppose, nevertheless, that a concern is pulling up its fiscal statements at 31 December 2008. Normally, utilizing the historical cost construct, the assets would be shown at a entire value of $ 100,000. It is known, nevertheless, that the concern will be forced to shut down in February 2009, merely two months subsequently, and the assets are expected to be sold for merely $ 15,000.

In this instance it would non do sense to maintain the traveling concern construct, so we can reject the historical cost construct for plus rating intents. In the balance sheet at 31 December 2008 the assets will hence be shown at the figure $ 15,000. Rejection of the traveling concern construct is the exclusion instead than the regulation.

Examples when the traveling concern premise should be rejected are:

If the concern is traveling to shut down n the close hereafter ;

Where deficit of hard currency makes it about certain that the concern will hold to discontinue trading ;

Where a big portion of the concern will about surely have to be closed down because of a deficit of hard currency. ( Frank Wood & A ; Alan Sangster 2009, pg.111 )

The going-concern ( or continuity ) construct, comptrollers assume that the concern will go on runing for the foreseeable hereafter. The logic behind the going-concern construct is best illustrated by sing the alternate premise: traveling out of concern.

When a concern Michigan, it sells its assets, change overing them to hard currency. This procedure is called settlement. With the hard currency, the concern pays off it liabilities, and the proprietors keep any staying hard currency. In settlement, the sum of hard currency for which the assets are sold steps their current value. Likewise, the liabilities are paid away at their current value.

For a traveling concern, the balance sheet studies assets and liabilities on the footing of historical cost. To see what the plus may be deserving in the current market requires doing an estimation. This estimation may or may non be made objectively. Under the going-concern construct, it is assumed that the entity will go on long plenty to retrieve the cost of its assets.

The going-concern construct allows for the coverage of assets and liabilities as current or long-run, a differentiation that investors and creditors find utile in measuring a company. For illustration, a creditor wants to cognize the part of the company? liabilities that are scheduled to come due within the following twelvemonth and the part collectible beyond the twelvemonth. The premise is that the entity wi ll continue in concern and honor its committednesss. ( Charles T. Horngren et al. 1995, pg.492 )

Fiscal studies are prepared usually on the premise that the bing entity will go on to run in the future-the traveling concern premise. It is assumed that the entity will non be sold in the close hereafter but will go on its activities, and so the settlement values ( monetary values in a forced sale ) of the assets are non by and large reported.

When direction plans the sale or settlement of the entity, the traveling concern premise is set aside and the fiscal statements are prepared on the footing of estimated gross revenues or settlement values. The statements should so identity clearly the footing upon which plus values are determined. In order for determination shapers to understand information contained in fiscal studies, it is of import that they know whether the assets are valued at cost, at just values, or on some other footing. ( John Hogett et Al. 2006, p41 )

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