西方会计英语Unit one Fundamentals of accountin

[00:04.65]Text 1.1    What is accountin

[00:09.06]Accounting 1 contains elements both of science and ar

[00:13.61]The important thing is that it is not merely a collection of arithmetical techniques but a set of complex processes depending on and prepared for peopl

[00:25.31]The human aspect,which many people ,especially accountants, forget ,arises becaus

[00:31.45]1.Most accounting reports of any significance depend,to a greater or lesser 3 extent ,on people's opinions and estimate

[00:40.75]2.Accounting reports are prepared in order to help people make decision

[00:46.39]3.Accounting reports are based on activities which have been carried out by peopl

[00:53.00]But what specially 2 is accounting? It is very difficult to find a pithy 4 definition that is all-inclusive but we can say that accounting is concerned wit

[01:03.79]The provision of information in financial terms that will help in decisions concerning resource allocatio

[01:10.74]and the preparation of reports in financial terms describing the effects of past resource allocation decision

[01:18.26]Example of resource allocation decisions ar

[01:21.74]Should an investor 5 buy or sell share

[01:24.66]Should a bank manager lend money to a fir

[01:27.80]How much tax should a company pa

[01:30.49]Which collective farm should get the extra tracto

[01:34.20]As you can see, accounting is needed in any society requiring resource allocation and its usefulness is not confined to 'capitalist'or 'mixed'economie

[01:44.25]An accountant is concerned with the provision and interpretation 6 of financial informatio

[01:49.77]He does not, as an accoutant, make decision

[01:53.21]Many accountants do of course get directly involved in decision making but when they do they are perfoming a different functio

[02:00.40]Accounting is also concerned with reporting on the effects of past decision

[02:05.52]But one should consider whether this is done for its own sake or whether it is done in order to provide information which it is hoped will prove helpful in current and future decision

[02:16.78]We contend that knowledge of the past is relevant only if it can be used to help in making current and future decisions

[02:24.61]for we can hope that we shall be able to influence the future by making appropriate decisions but we cannot redo the pas

[02:33.08]Thus the measurement of past results is a subsidiary role, but because of the historical development of accounting and

[02:40.81]perhaps, because of the limitations of the present state of the art ,'backward looking'accounting sometimes appears to be an end in itself and not as a means that will help in achieving a more fundamental objectiv

[02:54.16]Text 1.2        The accounting equati

[02:58.23]Accounting is at least the second oldest profession in the world

[03:01.66]But while earlier professionals rapidly got to grips with basic techniques and even introduced refinement 7

[03:07.74]it is remarkable 8 that generations of tax collectors and merchants staggered on for thousands of years before finding a satisfactory general method of keeping a record of their affair

[03:18.11]This should serve as a warnin

[03:20.15]The problem is common sense but the answer is not.

[03:24.38]It is highly contrived 9 and in some respects still imperfect.

[03:28.51]It begins with a particular way of looking at a business which we present in the next section.

[03:33.42]A business may be pictured as a box.The box has contents and by virue of owning the box, the owner has a claim on the contents.

[03:42.41]Others also may have a claim on the contents,by virtue 10 of having lent money to the business or of having supplied goods or services to the business or of having supplied goods or services to the business for which they have not yet been paid

[03:53.09]These are the creditors 11 of the busines

[03:55.47]As the business buys and sells goods and services,so the value of the contents of the box will increase or decrease,depending on whether the business makes a profit or a los

[04:05.84]These changes in value of contents must be equalled by changes in value of claims on content

[04:12.76]Specifically the claims of the owners will vary so that the total value to claims is always equal to the value of the content

[04:21.51]Now we may list the value of the contents of the business box at any time,say down the left side of a piece of pape

[04:28.75]On the right side we may list the value of claims on those contents

[04:33.06]The claims of third party creditors will be know

[04:36.24]The claims of the owners will amount to whatever is necessary to make the total value of claims equal to the total value of content

[04:44.50]Such a list of contents(on the left) balanced by a list of claims (on the right),constitutes a simple balance shee

[04:52.88]A balance sheet is a presentation of the state of affairs of a business in a succinct,systematic and recognizable forma

[05:00.09]Restating the original theory ,with the picture of the business as a box ,we can writ 12

[05:05.63]$ contents = $ claims on conten

[05:10.80]In accounting terms ,this becom

[05:13.29]1.Assets = equity 13 + liabileti

[05:18.59]Where asserts are simply what is held in the business, equity is the claim of the owners,and liabilities are the claims of third partie

[05:28.44]By transferring liabilities to the side of the equation we may writ

[05:33.40]assets - liabilities = equi

[05:37.76]or using a technical term            2.Net assets = Equi

[05:45.08]Finally we may split equity into the capital originally put into the business and reserve

[05:51.45]Reserves represent profits which have been reserved or kept in the business.The equation now become

[05:59.55]3.Net Assets = capital + reserv

[06:05.71]1,2 and 3 above are forms of the fundamental accounting equatio