Using artificial time periods leads to questions about when certain transactions should be recorded. Depending on the type of report, the time period may be a day, a month, a year, or another arbitrary period. Most businesses exist for long periods of time, so artificial time periods must be used to report the results of business activity. Footnotes supplement financial statements to convey this information and to describe the policies the company uses to record and report business transactions. The full disclosure principle requires that financial statements include disclosure of such information. However, pending lawsuits, incomplete transactions, or other conditions may have imminent and significant effects on the company's financial status. Financial statements normally provide information about a company's past performance. dollars for this purpose.įull disclosure principle. Businesses in the United States usually use U.S. Furthermore, accounting records must be recorded using a stable currency. Certain economic events that affect a company, such as hiring a new chief executive officer or introducing a new product, cannot be easily quantified in monetary units and, therefore, do not appear in the company's accounting records. An economic entity's accounting records include only quantifiable transactions. In addition, business records must not include the personal assets or liabilities of the owners. Although accounting information from many different entities may be combined for financial reporting purposes, every economic event must be associated with and recorded by a specific entity. Economic entities include businesses, governments, school districts, churches, and other social organizations. Financial records must be separately maintained for each economic entity. Some of these are discussed later in this book, but other are left for more advanced study.Įconomic entity assumption. In addition to these concepts, there are other, more technical standards accountants must follow when preparing financial statements. The basic assumptions and principles presented on the next several pages are considered GAAP and apply to most financial statements. The current set of principles that accountants use rests upon some underlying assumptions. The GASB develops accounting standards for state and local governments. However, the SEC usually operates in an oversight capacity, allowing the FASB and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) to establish these requirements. Two laws, the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, give the SEC authority to establish reporting and disclosure requirements. GAAP comprises a broad set of principles that have been developed by the accounting profession and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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