Accounting Principles
Economic Entity Assumption
The going concern principle allows the company to defer some of its prepaid expenses until future accounting periods. The Economy Entity is a term that states that the accountant keeps the entire business transactions of a single proprietorship separate from the business owner’s personal transactions. For the legal purpose, the single proprietorship and its owner is considered to be one entity, whereas, for the accounting purpose they both are considered to be as two different entities.
Monetary Unit Assumption
This term is used to state that in long run, we assume that the Dollar is stable that means it will not lose its purchasing power. The concept of Monetary unit is an accounting principle wherein the business transaction or events are assumed to be measured and expressed in terms of monetary units that are again said to be stable.
Time Period Assumption
This accounting principle assumes that it is possible to report the complex and ongoing activities of a business in relatively short, distinct time intervals such as the five months ended May 31, 2016, or the 5 weeks ended May 1, 2016. The shorter the time interval, the more likely the need for the accountant to estimate amounts relevant to that period. For example, the property tax bill is received on December 15 of each year. On the income statement for the year ended December 31, 2015, the amount is known; but for the income statement for the three months ended March 31, 2016, the amount was not known and an estimate had to be used.
It is imperative that the time interval (or period of time) be shown in the heading of each income statement, statement of stockholders' equity, and statement of cash flows. Labeling one of these financial statements with "December 31" is not good enough–the reader needs to know if the statement covers the one week ended December 31, 2016 the month ended December 31, 2016 the three months ended December 31, 2016 or the year ended December 31, 2016.
Cost Principle
From an accountant's point of view, the term "cost" refers to the amount spent (cash or the cash equivalent) when an item was originally obtained, whether that purchase happened last year or thirty years ago. For this reason, the amounts shown on financial statements are referred to as historical cost amounts.
Because of this accounting principle asset amounts are not adjusted upward for inflation. In fact, as a general rule, asset amounts are not adjusted to reflect any type of increase in value. Hence, an asset amount does not reflect the amount of money a company would receive if it were to sell the asset at today's market value. (An exception is certain investments in stocks and bonds that are actively traded on a stock exchange.) If you want to know the current value of a company's long-term assets, you will not get this information from a company's financial statements–you need to look elsewhere, perhaps to a third-party appraiser.
Full Disclosure Principle
If certain information is important to an investor or lender using the financial statements, that information should be disclosed within the statement or in the notes to the statement. It is because of this basic accounting principle that numerous pages of "footnotes" are often attached to financial statements.
As an example, let's say a company is named in a lawsuit that demands a significant amount of money. When the financial statements are prepared it is not clear whether the company will be able to defend itself or whether it might lose the lawsuit. As a result of these conditions and because of the full disclosure principle the lawsuit will be described in the notes to the financial statements. A company usually lists its significant accounting policies as the first note to its financial statements.
Going Concern Principle
This accounting principle assumes that a company will continue to exist long enough to carry out its objectives and commitments and will not liquidate in the foreseeable future. If the company's financial situation is such that the accountant believes the company will not be able to continue on, the accountant is required to disclose this assessment.
Matching Principle
This accounting principle requires companies to use the accrual basis of accounting. The matching principle requires that expenses be matched with revenues. For example, sales commissions expense should be reported in the period when the sales were made (and not reported in the period when the commissions were paid). Wages to employees are reported as an expense in the week when the employees worked and not in the week when the employees are paid. If a company agrees to give its employees 1% of its 2016 revenues as a bonus on January 15, 2017, the company should report the bonus as an expense in 2016 and the amount unpaid at December 31, 2016 as a liability. (The expense is occurring as the sales are occurring.)
Because we cannot measure the future economic benefit of things such as advertisements (and thereby we cannot match the ad expense with related future revenues), the accountant charges the ad amount to expense in the period that the ad is run.
Revenue Recognition Principle
Under the accrual basis of accounting (as opposed to the cash basics of accounting), revenues are recognized as soon as a product has been sold or a service has been performed, regardless of when the money is actually received. Under this basic accounting principle, a company could earn and report $20,000 of revenue in its first month of operation but receive $0 in actual cash in that month.
For example, if ABC Consulting completes its service at an agreed price of $1,000, ABC should recognize $1,000 of revenue as soon as its work is done—it does not matter whether the client pays the $1,000 immediately or in 30 days. Do not confuse revenue with a cash receipt.
Materiality
Because of this basic accounting principle or guideline, an accountant might be allowed to violate another accounting principle if an amount is insignificant. Professional judgment is needed to decide whether an amount is insignificant or immaterial.
An example of an obviously immaterial item is the purchase of a $150 printer by a highly profitable multi-million dollar company. Because the printer will be used for five years, the matching principle directs the accountant to expense the cost over the five-year period. The materiality guideline allows this company to violate the matching principle and to expense the entire cost of $150 in the year it is purchased. The justification is that no one would consider it misleading if $150 is expensed in the first year instead of $30 being expensed in each of the five years that it is used.
Because of materiality, financial statements usually show amounts rounded to the nearest dollar, to the nearest thousand, or to the nearest million dollars depending on the size of the company.
Conservatism
If a situation arises where there are two acceptable alternatives for reporting an item, conservatism directs the accountant to choose the alternative that will result in less net income and/or less asset amount. Conservatism helps the accountant to "break a tie." It does not direct accountants to be conservative. Accountants are expected to be unbiased and objective.
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