Accounting

Accounting

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Accounting practice encompasses a wide variety of organizational activities which include the
recording of financial transactions and events in the firm’s books, the use of financial information
for management decision-making and control purposes, and the preparation and audit of financial
statements prepared for external users such as investors, customers, and employees. There are many
textbooks available which provide introductory, intermediate, and advanced treatments of the technical
and managerial issues raised by such accounting activities. The current volume cannot possibly
aim to provide in depth coverage of the vast range of activities which comprise modern accounting
practice. Instead, it aims to provide a way in to the expanding accounting research literature which in
recent years has come to provide a variety of perspectives on the big issues confronting accounting
practice. I briefly consider some of these perspectives here.
Some of the contributions to the volume focus on particular financial reporting, auditing, or
management accounting topics and outline alternative possible approaches or treatments within
(and perhaps beyond) existing conventions or rules. The information contained in the main financial
statements (the balance sheet, the profit and loss account, and the cash flow statement) is discussed;
important aspects of financial reporting such as the treatment of employee stock options, pensions
accounting, and the treatment of taxation are analyzed; comparative analysis of the use of statistical and
judgmental methods in auditing is provided: and the nature of costing systems required to generate
product cost information in modern production environments are described. While these contributions
to the volume throw important light on important technical developments in the broad accounting
arena, they also draw attention to the choices that must be made by accounting regulators, auditors,
and managers in determining what is an appropriate treatment of a particular item in a company’s
financial statements, an effective audit procedure or the ‘‘optimal’’ approach to product costing. The
fact that these choices can have profound effects on management decision-making and on the fortunes
(and decisions) of important corporate stakeholders or constituencies indicates the fundamental
managerial, economic, and social importance of developing understandings of the broader implications
of accounting practice.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Accounting

Call Number

-

Publisher

USA : Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005

Collation

1-454

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-631-23317-2

Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

2nd Edition

Subject(s)

Accounting

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

-

Other version/related

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