Accounting Concepts and Conventions

Introduction
Accounting concepts and conventions as used in accountancy are the rules and
guidelines by that the accountant lives. All formal accounting statements should be
created, preserved and presented according to the concepts and conventions that
follow.

Going concern
This concept is the underlying assumption that any accountant makes when he
prepares a set of accounts. That the business under consideration will remain
in existence for the foreseeable future. In addition to being an old concept of
accounting, it is now. Without this concept, accounts would have to be drawn up on
the 'winding up' basis. That is, on what the business is likely to be worth if it is sold
piecemeal at the date of the accounts. The winding up value would almost certainly
be different from the going concern value shown. Such circumstances as the state of
the market and the availability of finance are important considerations here.

Accruals
Otherwise known as the matching principle. The purpose of this concept is to
make sure that all revenues and costs are recorded in the appropriate
statement at the appropriate time. Thus, when a profit statement is compiled,
the cost of goods sold relevant to those sales should be recorded accurately and in
full in that statement. Costs concerning a future period must be carried forward as a
prepayment for that period and not charged in the current profit statement. For
example, payments made in advance such as the prepayment of rent would be
treated in this way. Similarly, expenses paid in arrears must, although paid after the
period to that they relate, also be shown in the current period's profit statement: by
means of an accruals adjustment.

Consistency
Because the methods employed in treating certain items within the accounting
records may be varied from time to time, the concept of consistency has come to be
applied more and more rigidly. For example, because there can be no single rate of
depreciation chargeable on all fixed assets, every business has potentially a lot of
discretion over the precise rate it chooses to use. However, if it wishes, a business
may vary the rates at which it charges depreciation and alter the profits it reports at
the same time. Consider the effects on profit of charging depreciation at 15% this
year on £10,000 worth of fixed assets and then charging depreciation at 10% next
year on the same £10,000 worth of fixed assets. This year you would charge £1,500
against profits and next year it would be only £1,000, using the straight line method
of providing for depreciation.
Because of these sorts of effects, it is now accepted practice that when a company
chooses to treat items such as depreciation in a particular way in the accounts it
should go on using that method year after year. If it is NECESSARY to change the
method being employed or the rates being charged then an explanation of the
change and the effects it is having on the results must be shown as a note to the
accounts being presented.

Prudence
It is this concept more than any other that has given rise to the idea that
accountants are pessimistic boring people!! Basically the concept says that whenever
there are alternative procedures or values, the accountant will choose the one that
results in a lower profit, a lower asset value and a higher liability value. The
concept is summarized by the well known phrase 'anticipate no profit and
provide for all possible losses'. Thus, undue optimism can never be part of the
makeup of an accountant! The danger is that if an optimistic view of profits is given
then dividends may be paid out of profits that have not been earned.

Entity
Otherwise known as the 'accounting entity' concept. The idea here is that the
financial transactions of one individual or a group of individuals must be kept
separate from any unrelated financial transactions of those same individuals or
group. The best example here concerns that of the sole trader or one man business:
in this situation you may have the sole trader taking money by way of 'drawings':
money for his own personal use. Despite it being his business and apparently his
money, there are still two aspects to the transaction: the business is 'giving' money
and the individual is 'receiving' money. So, the affairs of the individuals behind a
business must be kept separate from the affairs of the business itself.

Cost
This concept is based on the notion that only the costs paid to acquire an asset are
relevant and thus should be the only costs to be shown in the accounts. For
example, fixed assets are shown on the balance sheet at the price paid to acquire
them; that is, their historic cost less depreciation written off to date.
There is a problem in this area. That is the one of value. The accountant will rarely
talk of value in this context since the use of such a term implies personal bias. After
all, the value of an asset as far as I am concerned may be different to the value of
the same asset as far as you may be concerned. The application of the cost concept
ensures that subjective judgments play no part in the drawing up of accounting
statements.

Monetary Measurement … £££

The money measurement concept is one of the simpler concepts. It simply and
clearly states that only those transactions that are true financial transactions may be
accounted for. That is, only those transactions that may be expressed in money
values (whatever the currency) are of interest to the accountant.

Materiality
We are concerned here with the idea that accountants should concern themselves
only with matters that are significant because of their size and should not consider
trivial matters. The problem, of course, is in deciding what is and what is not
material: we are concerned here with RELATIVE IMPORTANCE. As far as an individual
is concerned, the loss of a £10 would be important and MATERIAL. As far as Chevron
or Barclays Bank is concerned, the loss of £10 could be considered unimportant in
many circumstances and therefore immaterial: please note I am not suggesting that
fraud or carelessness in the handling of money is acceptable!!

Stable money
Normal or historic cost accounting assumes that transactions occurring over a period
of time can be measured in terms of a single, stable measuring unit eg Pounds,
Dollars ... This means that, in the UK, all accounts are drawn up in Pounds; and this
year's balance sheet can be compared with last year's balance sheet. Consequently,
if fixed assets brought down from last year were £1,000 and a further £500 of fixed
assets were bought during this year, we would say fixed assets carried down from
this year were worth £1,000 + 500 = £1,500. All of this gives rise to consistency but
there is a problem with reality inflation means that very few currencies are truly
stable.
Many attempts have been made at solving this problem, incidentally, but, in the UK,
for example, all efforts have proven useless. The only really meaningful accounting
directive ever enacted on this subject was withdrawn by the accounting bodies in the
UK several years ago.

Conclusions
These, then, are the basic concepts and conventions on which the accountant bases
all of his accounting work. We can see evidence of such work in the published annual
reports and accounts that all publicly quoted companies are required to prepare and
publish. The concepts and conventions also apply to the millions of businesses
worldwide that do not publish their accounts.
When we look at the work of an accountant we can see evidence that he has
followed these concepts and conventions: we will see accrued expenses, we will see
that there is a statement to the effect that the accounts have been drawn up on the
basis of the going concern concept … and so on.
There are problems with these concepts and conventions, however, in that some of
them conflict with each other. For example, money measurement and materiality can
conflict, consistency and materiality can conflict. Have a look at the next page
Conflicts in accounting concepts to explore some of these issues in more detail.