Rigging the LIBOR
The British banking regulator FSA has prosecuted Barclays for rigging the interest rates in the market. The regulator termed it as being equivalent to stealing money from people who invest in derivatives and other stock market instruments that are sensitive to LIBOR. Barclays, one of the largest banks in the United Kingdom had to pay […]
Hedge Funds and Conflict Of Interest
Hedge funds are often looked upon as being unethical in their practices. This is partly because there is public outrage about the amount of money that some of the fund managers are able to earn as income even though they are supposedly causing systemic crisis. The fact that the names of hedge fund managers have […]
The True Cost of Raising Funds
A startup is considered to be successful when it is able to raise money. The fact that a startup was able to convince potential investors to open their wallets is considered to be proof that the business model is stable. The fundraising aspect can be considered to be quite thrilling and even glamorous. However, it […]
Financial Modeling: Important Metrics
Financial modeling can be considered to be the science of making informed decisions regarding a company based on data simulations. Most financial models pay keen attention to a variable such as revenue and expenses as well as their drivers. Data regarding these variables is extensively collated as well as analyzed. However, it turns out that […]
Strategic Finance and Sustainability
The concept of strategic finance relates to making decisions that help the firm increase its cash flow in the long run. Strategic finance is about changing the focus from short-term profits to long-term value creation. On the other hand, sustainability is about including more stakeholders in the value creation process. For instance, in the past, […]
Although accounting may be heralded as being the language of the business, it is definitely not error-free. This has been highlighted by the fact that accounting scams have occurred one after the other for many years. In fact, even after stricter regulation and tightening of accounting rules, accounting scams just don’t cease to stop.
As a student and practitioner of accounting, it is therefore imperative to know the limitations of accounting. Knowledge of limitations helps to factor them in and work with them. Here are the major limitations of accounting.
Accountants have to attach a monetary value to every event or transaction that has taken place within the organization. Sometimes the monetary value of the transaction is impossible to be ascertained. Consider the case of depreciation. Accountants can at best provide estimates of the depreciation that should have taken place given the scale of operations. However, these estimates are usually way off the mark. This makes accounting policies open to debate as well as manipulation.
Accountants try to attach a monetary value to everything. The things they cannot attach a monetary value to are not accounted for! Consider the case of Goodwill. Until the organization has explicitly paid for the Goodwill it purchased from another company, it cannot account for Goodwill. According to accountants, the Goodwill generated by the firm internally is worthless. We all know that this is not the case and therefore accounting is flawed as far as Goodwill is concerned.
Accountants have to measure all transactions in a single unit of account. This unit of account is usually the currency that is being used in a particular country. However, it is common knowledge that the value of currencies is not stable.
Inflation, deflation and such other forces make currency values dynamic. When accountants express assets purchased in last year’s rupees with the same unit as purchased by this year’s rupees, it presents a distorted image. Many companies have low book values because their assets were purchased a long time back during periods of no inflation.
Accountants provide information about what has happened. However, management would be better off if they had information about what could have happened if they used their resources in the optimum manner. This feature is also lacking in accountancy making its usefulness limited from the managerial point of view.
Despite its limitations, the importance of accounting is unquestionable. It is difficult to imagine running a firm without accounting.
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An Overview of Contracts and Why They are Important to Business and Society
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