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Definition

Headings

I propose that the definition at the beginning of this article be reduced to a single paragraph. I think it unwise to allow the opening definition to be greater than a single paragraph, as the larger the defintion, the more disagreement will arise as to what should or should not be included. One benefit of this proposal is that a one paragraph definition will be immediately followed by the table of contents, which is currently a quarter way down the page. An illustration of this proposed improvement to the layout is the article Physics, which in my view is neater in appearance.--Gavin Collins 20:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Secondly, I propose that the new heading "Introduction" be created to accommodate the orphaned paragraphs that follow the definition so that readers and contributors can understand what the purpose of these paragraphs are as well as to give them some structure. At the time of writing, the definition section is too long and out of control. Its long length is a temptation for people to add more content to it. The place for content that aims to expand the defintion is in an Introductory section rather than extending the definition.--Gavin Collins 20:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Thirdly I propose creating an entirely new section "Principals of Accounting" to assist readers understand why accounting is classed as a methodology. I do so with the knowledge that this is a topic of wideranging debate about what are accountancy principals, a debate that has gone on within the profession for more than a hundred years . Despite the heated debate this may give rise too, I think this would be an interesting addition to the article, which in my view is incomplete without it.--Gavin Collins 20:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

To accomodate comments relvant to each section, I have rearranged the headings of this discussion page to bring it more in line with sections 1-10 used in the article. Note to past contributors: I have not deleted any content, nor have I made changes with the intention of promoting/demoting the importance any particular section. However, I think all of this discussion should be rearranged in line with the article itself, so that its subject matter remains focused on improving the article's content. --Gavin Collins 20:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Usage

I'm not pleased with the redirecting of accounting, accountant and bookkeeping all to accountancy. First, accountancy is a kind of $20 word not in general use in English. Second, bookkeeping is a discrete occupation carried on by thousands of people who are not professional accountants. Third, accountants are a profession, and suitable for a professional topic of their own. As it is the article promises to become quite unwieldy and ultimately useless for providing simple information about bookkeeping, accounting and the profession of accounting. user:Fredbauder

Well Fred, it seems you are all wet. "Accountancy" is just British English, while "accounting" is merely American English. It would seem the British get to title at least one article their way. User:Fredbauder PS. We still need a bookkeeping article.

My Masters Degree from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, USA says that I received a Masters in Accountancy. As such, I'm willing to go along with Accountancy, as long as any questions about Accounting get redirected to the proper page. I am far more concerned about the separate but related topics of auditing and accountancy being combined into one. Most accountants do not audit. --Fcoulter 19:09, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I doubt that there is a significant number of people (American, British, etc.) who use "accountancy" instead of "accounting". Is the former word really so common? ] 00:33, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about British English, but the word "accountancy" is pretty much nonexistent in the US. Rhobite 00:09, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

I'm from the U.S., and I've never heard of the word "accountancy" until I saw this article. Also: "accountancy" gets 1,720,000 hits on Google, while "accounting" gets 22,700,000 , about 13 times as many as the former. Please note, however, that it is our house style to generally not change between American and British English, but to rather to use the dialect in which the individual articles were written in. • Benc • 05:52, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Having lived in Ireland and England, I can confirm that "accountancy" is in widespread and accepted use in the UK and Éire. I thus think this RfC is another incarnation of ye ole "Britspeak vs. Yankspeak" issue. I would personally MUCH prefer "accountancy", because to a British English speaker it carries a more professional connotation. However, I am biased pro-Britspeak and there is little merit in perpetuating this never-ending war of the words. I say either let's go with whatever notation the article first was written in, as Benc noted, or write separate but linked accountancy/accounting articles about the respective British/US practices/professions. Ropers 00:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Ropers. Maurreen 15:21, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've never heard of the term accountancy in my life, except for now, and I live in Canada. All the university courses here are called 'accounting'. --ShaunMacPherson 02:18, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Australians also use "accounting". It seems the UK is alone on this one, which is strange, since usually the US is the one out on a limb. Shane King 03:33, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Various countries also use different words for terms in accounting. I just saw Profit and loss account (British) which I know is called Income statement in US. I think we should distinguish those in future articles. --voidvector

My Masters Degree from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, USA says that I received a Masters in Accountancy. As such, I'm willing to go along with Accountancy, as long as any questions about Accounting get redirected to the proper page. I am far more concerned about the separate but related topics of auditing and accountancy being combined into one. Most accountants do not audit. --Fcoulter 19:09, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

In Michigan the licensing entity is the "Board of Accountancy" --EMU CPA 19:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Accountancy is the underlying theory, while accounting is the practice. I graduated from the Department of Accountancy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, nationally recognized as top tier school. However, I took many courses in accounting. These were courses in practical application, while courses in accountancy were in theory. This is the generally agreed upon distinction within academia. However, there remains a debate over the issue of accountancy vs. accounting. I doubt we can settle it on this talk page. Please refer to the bottom of page nine within this book .--H.al-shawaf 00:23, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Accountancy → Accounting

A proposal to move Accountancy → Accounting was placed on wikipedia:requested moves and failed. The discussion follows:

This may well fail, and I apologize in advance if this move turns out to be ill-founded, but as I recall, the word "accounting" is many times more common than "accountancy". I want to know the usage of these two words. Peter O. (Talk) 22:30, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)

• Neutral. This seems to be a case of British English vs American English. I haven't heard of the term "Accountancy" but if I'm to assume the page is correct, accountancy is the british word, learn something new everyday! In that case, I'm leaning toward oppose, but I'll wait to see any other comments before I decide for sure. For a lot these of cases it'd be nice if articles could actually exist at two names instead of having a redirect (but look and be functionally identical, when editing it would note that you're editing all the articles under that title.) --Sketchee 22:55, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral They're synonyms, however the difference is nuanced. Accountancy: the occupation of maintaining and auditing records and preparing financial reports for a business. Accounting: The bookkeeping methods involved in making a financial record of business transactions and in the preparation of statements concerning the assets, liabilities, and operating results of a business. (i.e. a "method of accounting" or an "accounting system") It isn't a matter of British English vs. American English as was erroneously assumed by the author of the article, because accountancy appears in both British and American speech. It is just that accountancy is more archaic as the vogue of modern speech is using the gerund form to discuss activities or occupations i.e. accounting, or knitting (which used to be knittery until it was dropped out of the dictionary). As such, "accounting" has become used more and more as the name of the profession. Traditionally, professions ending in -ant like accountant (or an adjective like bouyant) were connected with disciplines ending in -ancy like accountancy (or bouyancy) chiefly because the suffix -ant meaning One that performs, promotes, or causes a specified action (as a noun) or Performing, promoting, or causing a specified action (as an adjective) because it derives from the Middle English (particularly the French influence) present participle forms of the verb are. —ExplorerCDT 00:13, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral. IMO Accountancy is the profession and Accounting is the methodology. Rd232 00:51, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Neutrality 06:28, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Proteus (Talk) 08:21, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. I'm married to an accountant. RD232 is right and I see no reason to move the article. Jooler 10:31, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Support. First, the distinction does not exist in US English, as far as I have ever observed. The trade and the practice are both called ‘accounting’. (ExplorerCDT is arguing that we should put an article under an archaic term?) Second, the article is more about the practice than the trade, so even under the British/archaic distinction, this is an article about accounting, with accountancy as a subtopic. That is the way it should be: the practice is the primary topic. If we were starting from scratch, we would not define ‘accounting’ as “what accountants do” and then refer readers to ‘accountancy’. We would define ‘accountant’ as “practitioner of accounting” and then refer readers to ‘accounting’. Cooking is not “what cooks do”, and sewing is not “what tailors do”. Cooks and tailors are doing professionally something that the rest of us can do in small ways all the time. Accounting is the more general topic and this article is general, so the redirect is absolutely going the wrong way. — Ford 11:49, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)
  • • I'm so far neutral (though leaning to oppose the proposed move), because it's either we use a correct term (accountancy) of increasingly archaic usage, or an incorrect term (accounting) just because it's popular and increasingly prevalent. What's the old phrase of Woodrow Wilson? Something paraphrased about how what's right is not always popular, what's popular is not always right. There should—rather than redirect either to the other—be two separate articles.—ExplorerCDT 03:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Ah... I didn't realise this was a 'pondinan' thing. If that's the case then the choice of BE rather than AE of the original author should be preserved. That is Misplaced Pages policy. Jooler 11:58, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
    • But it is simply not another matter of BE vs. AE. —ExplorerCDT 03:43, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • The convention to which you refer is an editing convention, not a naming convention. Where article titles are concerned, generic topics (that is, not specific to either Britain or America) should be hosted under neutral terms, when possible. This was never more clear than in the fiasco over gramophone record (né analogue disc record, a.k.a. LP a.k.a. vinyl record a.k.a. record (audio) a.k.a. ...). ADH (t&m) 13:19, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
      • Read Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English), specifically the part that says "As a reminder, all national standards of English spelling are acceptable on the English-language Misplaced Pages, both for titles and content. American spellings need not be respelled to British standards nor vice-versa; for example, either Aeroplane or Airplane is acceptable." Proteus (Talk) 13:24, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
        • Read Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Usage and spelling, specifically "If the spelling appears in an article name, you should make a redirect page to accommodate the other variant, as with Aeroplane and Airplane, or if possible and reasonable, a neutral word might be chosen as with Glasses"; also Talk:Gramophone record/Archive2 for the specific example I cited. ADH (t&m) 13:45, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
• comment - some people have commented that they have never heard the term "Accountancy". If you check ".gov" sites using Google (), thus restricting hits to the USA you get 28,000 hits mainly related to state regulators of the industry. Jooler
• Strongly oppose As an accountant my work involves accountancy, but not much, if any, accounting. Indeed, I would be insulted if someone did say I just did accounting! It's like calling a mathematician an arithmetician. To those in the know there is a world of difference, jguk 12:40, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• ... if you're English, which jguk has equated with "in the know" a great many times in the past. I know several well-paid Washington accountants, and if you ask them what business they were in they invariably say "accounting." This is largely a pondian issue, as the article notes in its introductory paragraph, but the -ing usage is becoming more and more prevalent in even the most conservative British strongholds. More to the point, the more vulgar usage is far more likely to be searched for by the average reader, and more likely to be linked to by the average editor. Support. ADH (t&m) 12:57, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • Would those well-paid accountants be the ones regulated by the District of Columbia Board of Accountancy? Jooler 13:35, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. This isn't a British versus American, thing, and there is a concrete difference between the terms. Wiktionary might not be good enough to know the difference between the two, and instead think that this is an American/British thing. But the AHD is, and does. (I'm deliberately citing an American dictionary, to make the point more forcefully.) "accountancy" is an occupation; "accounting" is a method. The two are not even synonymous. An "account" can be a narrative or a record of events, and "accounting", as in "making an account of", can have nothing to do with "accountancy". Uncle G 13:30, 2005 Jan 31 (UTC)
• Oppose. Philip Baird Shearer 13:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Guettarda 17:05, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Estel (talk) 17:46, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. violet/riga (t) 17:42, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Accountancy is noun (concise); Accounting is ambiguous (either noun or verb. And as noted only one function of Accountancy). Daeron 06:46, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Berek 10:49, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose -- Francs2000 | Talk ] 19:46, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Accountancy, accountant, accounting

This article mixes the processes and methods of accountancy (or accounting) with the profession or occupation of accountant and with the typical terms for businesses that do accountancy (or accounting). In the U.S., an accountant works for an accounting firm and does accounting. In the U.K., an accountant works for an accountancy (or accountancy firm) and does accountancy. Some U.S. schools award degrees for accounting, some award degrees for accountancy. U.K. schools award degrees for accountancy. The person doing this sort of work is always called an accountant, never an accountancy. I think the uses of the terms should be made explicit in the article, because the way the article reads, it's extremely confusing and mixes topics. --SueHay 13:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If this differnce in meanings isn't sorted out soon and reflected in this article, you're doing harm to Misplaced Pages readers. PLEASE CLARIFY. --SueHay 03:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Modern accounting/accountancy

According to critics ...

I don't see how the paragraph beginning "According to critics of standard accounting practices ..." follows from the previous paragraph. The criticism I've heard about accounting is whether financial measures are enough, historical cost, etc. I haven't seen any serious criticism of the double entry bookkeeping system which is what the placement of this paragraph implies.--Fredrik Coulter 00:35, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, that sentence baffles me to. How any one can say that the records they kept in Vienna hundreds of years ago aren't much to the life long learning needed in todays field is beyond me. --lincs_geezer 20:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Managerial and Financial Accounting

It would seem alright to include a short comparison of Managerial and Financial accounting here. However, these 2 subjects are very broad and many accountants practice either Managerial or Financial and seldom is the case when both are given the task to practice both.

With more than 2 years experience working for PWC, in the field of audit and later under management consultancy, I cannot emphasize how different both of these accounting fields are.

I'm trying to compose a detailed comparison and hopefully would post them later. Modelwatcher 08:24, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Such a comparison is not needed in the main article. Managerial accounting is already listed in the short list of topics in accounting. It has no more relevance than the rest of the topics in the list. _└  / _talk  13:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Accounts Organisation

Accounts

Finance/ Accounts are a very important department in every organisation. Every business needs to look after their financial side. The accounts function deals with financial operations such as paying bills, taxes, information of accounts and salaries etc. The accounts department is to maintain a steady cash flow to support day-to-day transactions. The functions of accounts department includes:

Investments , Payments, Budgets, Transactions, Accounts Procedure, End of Year Accounts.

Materiality?

What isn't materiality included as one of the accounting concepts?

Rex 07:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC) rexislexis

Materiality isn't an accounting concept. It's an accounting convention, and an auditing and financial analysis concept. - Mtmelendez 22:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 2 issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board states: "All of the qualities of information shown are subject to a materiality threshold." It also lists materiality under its list of "Primary Decision-Specific Qualities":

Materiality is a pervasive concept that relates to the qualitative characteristics, especially relevance and reliability. Quantitative materiality criteria may be given by the Board in specific standards in the future, as in the past, as appropriate.

--Dpr 19:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You're partly right. "All of the qualities of information shown are subject to a materiality threshold." However, the FASB establishes GAAP on external financial statements. - Mtmelendez 22:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

History of accounting

History and Luca Pacioli and the birth of modern accountancy

These two sections need to be merged and there needs to be citations backing up the presented information.

Art of Science

The first paragraph of the history section (which I really like and know little about) starts off with "The art of accountancy on a scientific principle ..." This really bothers me. Art and science tend (for me) to not work well together. Is there any way of rewriting this so that it works better?--Fredrik Coulter 00:37, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree that accounting is a science at all, better to stick with calling it an art. The technology associated with book keeping has not changed since Pacioli. Accounting is an assemblage of rules to deal with modern complexities (and is a compromise to keep the tax man mostly happy and to keep CEO's mostly out of jail).

I changed this wording before discovering these comments. I agree art and science do not mesh well; my objection related to the use of "science," which indicates an empirical basis versus a logical basis (thus mathematics). --EMU CPA 19:57, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

During a review of the edit history (see Revision as of 21:56, 25 November 2001 by Paul Drye), I found that much of the History section was quoted from the Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia, but the citation information has been deleted. See entry under "Accountants" at http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext95/pge0112.txt. --EMU CPA 08:04, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with calling it an art. I have a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Accountancy. However other universities offer B.A.'s. I think there is significant debate as to its inclusion as a science or an art.--H.al-shawaf 00:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Accountancy qualifications and regulation

Is this an article about accountancy or accountancy bodies?

Do we need to have so much detail about each accounting organsiations and their history. Would they be better served with their own article. Can we not write about accountancy and finance. I don't want to know about accountancy organisations, who are now taking up a large part of this article. --NilssonDenver 17:21, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I have gone ahead and moved the long section to a separate article. THJames 08:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Bean Counter or Professional

The general tone of the above suggests that most of the contributors, whether they be participating in whatever it is or be looking at it from a distance seem to see some level of 'bean counting'. I would like to suggest that a real Accountant sees himself as something much more.

Reminds me of the story about the company needing an accountant. The three finalists were given the same question: What is 2 + 2. The first said "eveyone knows that it is 4" and was dismissed. The second said "I think it is 4, but I would like to use a calculator to make sure" and he also was dismissed. The third responded "You would be amazed at how many think it is 4. Tell me, What did you have in mind?". He was hired on the spot.

This story will be thought of as a joke by those who have not looked at the purpose for hiring an accountant. To believe that everyone who looks at the same thing will see and understand it the same way, is to believe something other than the truth. It is this writers current belief that accountants, whether they are on a company payroll or hold themselves out as consultants are basically advocates for those who pay them, possibly even more so than are attorneys. I am an accountant who does mostly tax work. When a client asks me to prepare a financial statement, the first thing I ask them is "what are you going to use it for". IMO an accountant that would not ask that question is not going to be delivering what is being ordered. To allow this to happen IMO would constitute malpractice, especially since at least some of the clients are not aware of what can be done with a set of numbers and are therefore can be misrepresented without their knowledge. While it is true that some people who hold themselves out as accountants do not realize this, it is my belief that those who are experienced and have considered their real responsibility will be aware of this.

I would appreciate other thoughts on this. Thank You!Ken 04:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your statements. In the U.S. a simple compilation that you refered to above would require an accountant to adhere to SSARS set forth by the AICPA. You don't go to school for 5 years and take 14 hours of professional tests to count, you go to school for five years and become a CPA to become a professional.--H.al-shawaf 00:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Actual experience really makes a big difference. After working for PWC and doing audits of multinationals and then later on doing some management consultancy for the same firm, it provides a newly graduate a more 'matured' perspective of the profession. You are right in your observation that

"While it is true that some people who hold themselves out as accountants do not realize this, it is my belief that those who are experienced and have considered their real responsibility will be aware of this."

There is so much diversity in the practice of the profession, as I have come to understand. Now that I am in the private sector and working exclusively for a group of companies, I now have the chance to view Accounting in another perspective, with the issue of financial statement reporting and confidentiality. While tax reports and its practice is a separate and distinct part of being an Accountant, the issue of "what are you going to use it for" also applies to what I am doing right now.

Some may only be 'counting the beans' and may consider it as a 'job', but its like saying there is nothing beneath the tip of an iceberg. As a profession, there is a variety of specialization for Accountants to get involved with. Many have come to realize this issue and is now taking advantage of what they can offer in terms of services to various parties. Modelwatcher 08:12, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Accounting as a profession

Is "accounting" a profession? To "profess" a thought is to go out into the world as an individual and express your own ideas and opinions - you are then open to scrutiny as an individual in the world based on the results of the implementation your own ideas and opinions. Firstly, perhaps only 5% of accountants actually have this luxury in the real world of corporations and large practices; current organisational hierarchies simply do not accomodate professional behaviour in its true aspect. Secondly, the societal view of those few accountants that actually personally and individually profess, is seriously degraded due to recent ineptitudes such as Enron's balance sheet. Thirdly, the majority of the work done by the majority of "accountants" requires less skill than a mediocre high school student. In a real, today's world, modern office, practical look at the "profession" of accounting, they seem to have very little to "profess". Simply knowing how to set up a link on an Excel spreadsheet seems an especially cheap definition of a modern professional. The pretense of simply accepting accounting as a profession because of the historic analogy has to be dropped until we can accomodate its actual influence, and moreover those of its individual members as individuals, in a true objective professional light.

Whoever wrote this either thinks the entire world has an IQ > 150 or has obviously never taken any professional accounting exams, at least not in the UK anyway. I agree it may not really be a profession except for those are practically law experts (tax gods etc) but I wouldnt hardly say "the majority of the work done by the majority of "accountants" requires less skill than a mediocre high school student". As regards to the depth of the work involved thats why theres different job titles i.e. accounts clerk/accounts assistant/accounting technican/assistant accountant/accountant/financial controller etc etc at least in the UK anyway.--lincs_geezer 03:56, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course it's a profession. Picking apart the word "profession" is not a good way of determining what is and isn't one. Word meanings change over time.. I hope you are never in a situation where you have to take apart "inflammable" to figure out what it means. I don't know how it is in the UK, but CPA's in America do not spend their time dicking around in Excel (they bill far too much per hour to be doing routine work). Rhobite 19:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Accounting is a Profession

The argument is falacious from the beginning. Accounting is a profession for two reasons:

1. It has its own body of specialized knowledge and standards (GAAP, GAAS, etc.). 2. Accountants are recognized as such not only by themselves, but by outside authorities, like governments and legal authorities.

Accountants as a group practice many forms of the profession:

1. Certified Public or Chartered Accountants (CPS's) are accountants who audit, review or compile financial statements and profess an opinion on their fairness. This is considered the purest and highest form of the profession by many and is universally recognized as a position of trust (not withstanding Enron and Wroldcom). 2. Managerial Accounants (Certified Managerial Accountants or CMA's) practice accounting within organizations for the most part and provide decision support and analysis to management. They also prepare the statements audited by the CPA's. These are members of the management team and spend a lot of their time managing not only numbers, but people and resources as well. Other forms of this include Internal Auditors. 3. Forensic Accountants (often also CPA's and/or CMA'Sas well) do internal auditing inside companies or other organizations (usually large ones). 4. Academic Accountants are instructors at colleges and universities and form and ivory tower of the profession.

I have been and am three of these at one time, a CPA, CMA and I teach accounting and management part time. Accounting is certainly a profession; I have been doing it for 23 years and I do a little more than set up links in spreadsheets. Knowing where, how and why do put the numbers in the spreadsheets, develop complex models of cost behavior, make judgements about materiality, relevance and other issues are all part of the job, not to mention managing a department, advising the governing body and management and interfacing with banks, governmental agencies and other organization make up my day. No, beginning accountants mostly do not do these things, as they are learning the basics, but once you have been doing this as long as I have you are a professional.

The "Big Four" accountancy firms

While it is true (as stated) that the big four trace their history back to Europe (especially since Arthur Andersen is no longer with us), I think that overstates the case.

Pricewaterhouse and Coopers are two firms which merged just recently, so stating that it was formed in England is incorrect. Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu also traces its history to Japan. I don't know if both Touche Ross and Deloitte came from England. Ernst & Young wasn't founded by a Scottish accountant since this firm was also the result of a merger of two well established firms.

I think this section, assuming we want to keep it here and not on a separate page, should indicate where all of the multi-national firms came from, and how they all grew through international mergers. A nice flow chart history of the mergers would be pretty.

The other option would be to pull this section and just refer to a seperate page on the Big Four.--Fredrik Coulter 00:43, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

I have deleted the following section as I dispute its accuracy:

"The Big 4 accountancy firms can all trace their history back to firms in Europe, from which they have descended through a long line of mergers. Many of the originating firms were from the United Kingdom. As British trade interests expanded, correspondent firms were established throughout the world by the organisations."

The Big 4 are a mixture of international merged firms. Of those whose names remain in the firms, Ernst, Young and Marshall (M in KPMG) set up practices in USA and Tohmatsu was Japanese. Only PwC's main constituents were entirely founded in the UK.

THJames

There was a mystery character in UK accounting history - someone by the last name of Edwards (partnered with Price, Coopers Brothers articled with him, Touche was the exception who has done work on his own. Forerunners of Ernst and Whinny have changed their names since very early on but Waterhouse appeared to have articled under them for a few years, then the Arthur Andersen himself also work briefly under Price Waterhouse and Company US office. virtually all forerunners of big 4 today are more or less were related in the same circle.

The modern accounting / accountancy history was so colourful it may worth a page of its own.

Tsang 20060704(+8) 16:17

Size of market

I have added references showing this is just about the UK.

However, it seems this is largely lifted from the referenced article (including references to "Chart 1" which does not appear here). That article is copyrighted, so how can we reproduce it here ?

-- Beardo 19:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Revise or remove?

I propose that this section be revised or withrawn, since its content is not strictly related to accountancy as defined at the begining of the article. To quote from the source material:

"Accounting firms supply a range of services, including audit and assurance, tax, corporate finance, wealth management and insolvency and business recovery."

Although the contributor to this section cites their source, the content of the report indicates that the services provided by the "Big 4" are better described as Financial services rather than Accounting services. The services are listed in the article as follows:

• Audit
• Tax accounting
• Corporate finance
• Management consulting
• Wealth Management
• Insolvency

I would argue that, although they are highly significant, the "Big 4" and their work largely falls outside the scope of this article, and it is not clear what proportion of their work is stricly accounting related. --Gavin Collins 14:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Topics in accounting

Accounting Standards vs. Auditing Standards

I noticed (again) the PCASB on the list of accounting standard setting organizations. It isn't. It sets auditing standards for public companies. So I broke out the auditing standards setting organizations that I know about (in the US). Hopefully someone with some international expertise will add to the list. On the other hand, it's likely that this should be in the auditing article, not the accounting one.--Fredrik Coulter 02:05, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

International Accounting Standards

The last paragraph implies that the United States is being forced by the good people of Europe into International Accounting Standards. This is incorrect. The SEC and FASB are heavily involved in setting these standards. This paragraph appears to be a POV violation.--Fredrik Coulter 00:46, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)

See also

Editing this article

Two questions relevant to the quality/standard of this article: (1) Is it a problem that "accountant" is not mentioned until several paragraphs down from the top of the article? (2) can some articles be removed from the See also list since they are already in the body of the text? --57.68.49.4 16:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

"See also" section may have duplicate mentions. This section serves an independent purpose. It ideally should be alphabetical Sanjiv swarup 09:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Lists of related topics

Merger with Accounting scholarship

Merge - the Accounting scholarship article is not required and can be merged here. What123 20:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

OpposeThe fact that discussion of accounting (a subdiscipline or cognate discipline of economics) is regularly merged into an article almost exclusively devoted to the profession of accountancy is a real problem. Lots of issues relating to accounting are not properly covered in Misplaced Pages. JQ 22:17, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

OpposeThis article is far too long as it is. Accountancy is a very broad discipline and can't be fully covered in one article.

OpposeHopefully as more and more practicing Accountants get to see the benefits of wikipedia in making sure Accountancy is a profession with broad, diverse specialization, the better. This topic is just one of the many which need to be updated and edited. Modelwatcher 11:38, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

This seems unanimously opposed. Seeing as I discovered this in the backlog, I'm going to remove the merger tag. Cheers, -- THLR 23:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Accounting Articles

When I tried to wikify the SOX article, I found an enormous volume of accounting concepts seemed to lack Wiki articles, so I listed those omissions at Talk:Sarbanes-Oxley_Act#Related_Articles_Needed but I am not an accountant ... I think there ought to be a Wiki project group to review Wiki articles relevant to accounting, relevant to accounting standards, comparable to what other professions are doing here, such as Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Law. User:AlMac| 05:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

External links

Does anyone else think the external links section is getting out of control? A dozen links, and only one of them makes even some attempt to explain why it should be there in the first place!? The latest addition links to a Belgian forum or something. Has anyone some sort of plan or policy for this article? Rl 10:57, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

LINKSPAM EVENT HORIZON

The number of links in this article is completely out of control. Request all editors to take a few moments and remove those that are not absolutely necessary. There is no reason that approximately half of a good-length article should be made up of links. (It also tends to encourage the addition of even more extraneous links).--Gregalton 08:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Many of these links belong in sub-topic articles, such as Certified Public Accountant. I'm going to create a notice in the edit page so that users are aware of this spam issue. - Mtmelendez 12:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Done! I removed a ton of links from the Accountancy page. When I was moving them to sub-topics, I noticed that most of these links were already there. There's no need to include them in this core-topic, its basically redundant. The only links I didn't remove were those I could not access and therefore couldn't verify. So please, check them out and evaluate them.

Remember, this is a broad core topic representing a worldwide view. Therefore, links to a specific country's Institute of CPAs, or Chartered Accountants, or even the country's GAAP-setting authoritative body are more appropriate in specific articles, such as Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Accountant, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Also, there are many articles about accounting institutes in different countries, so there's no need to duplicate links across all related accounting articles. Editors, please consider this when including external links in this or other related core-topics. - Mtmelendez 12:45, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Odd and Ends

Those don't fit in the article so let me put them here until we find appropriate places.

Bookkeeping and Accountancy

Accounting Education and Training See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/0000start.htm

Accountancy and the Law

Accountancy vs. Fraud See http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/fraud.htm

Creative accounting is a phrase sometimes used as a joke, but basically it means the questionable use of clever innovations. Sometimes this simply produces results which are difficult to understand; sometimes it results in out and out fraud. Some consider the phrase "Accountancy as Fraud" more appropriate, and argue for more comprehensive accounting reform or the abolishment of the profession.

Accountancy and Taxation

Accounting complexity arises in part, perhaps in most part, from tax rules. Tax, tariff and trade laws typically imply changes also to accounting practices, to mirror capital asset value gains and losses.

I have removed:

RECENT EVENTS

Since 2002, the global step of reduction of costs and optimization of resources became a legal constraint, an obligation for all the highly-rated corporations or unquoted in the stock exchange.

Everything began with the law SARBANNES-OXLEY in the United States in 2002 who returned compulsory internal control. From 2003, Canada and European Economic Community took measures aiming at identical objectives:

1- The realization and optimization of the operations of reduction of costs and management of the performance;

2- The reliability of the financial information of costs and performances;

3- Correspondence to laws and to current regulations, notably standards of management of the quality;

4- The implementation of the rules of good governance “to play collective” :

-Every individual member of the company contributes to his level of responsibility in the internal control;

-The responsibilities of the staff of frame vary according to hierarchical levels;

- The general manager assures ultimate responsibility; he is responsible for the system of internal control;

-The directors of the various units are responsible for the internal control bound to the objectives of this one;

-The financial executives and their teams play a role of dominating piloting: they follow and analyze performances, by report not only in objectives bound to financial information, but also to those bound to the operations of the company and to the legal obligations.

These measures which impose the internal coherence as base of the management put company in front of a major technological challenge: the integration of their system of internal control.

Internal control directed towards “realization and optimization of the operations of reduction of costs and management of the performance" gets organized indeed around the notion of inductors of costs, the unforeseen phenomenon, the abnormality or the dysfunction which provokes an increase of costs. By opposition the inductor of activity is the event which activates the activity of the company.

To understand difficulty recovering, it is necessary remember yourself that the most known methods of management arise from the cost accounting which depends on the financial accounting itself. So very wide-spread methods such as the ABC (ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING), the ABM (ACTIVITY-BASED MANAGEMENT), “Cost killer””, etc., rest on the inductor of activity and not on the inductor of costs.

It is only very recently that multi-field searches in management drove to the normalization of the inductor of costs and to its standardization through the new technologies of information and the communication.

See :

It seems off-topic. Maybe it should go to cost management or corporate governance. mydogategodshat 06:37, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Other

WIKIPROJECT

Why doesn't accounting have a wikiproject? I mean, it's a large study field, it has numerous articles and categories, and most articles NEED A LOT OF WORK. Maybe we can improve them by inviting all wikipedians who are accountants, auditors, or any other related profession into an organized project. This isn't necessarily a recruitment effort, just a simple post to test the waters. Post what you think. - Mtmelendez 22:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

It is currently part of Business and Economics http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Business_and_Economics

This user is a member of the Business WikiProject.

I agree accountancy/accounting is a HUGE area and there is an index of articles for the category http://en.wikipedia.org/Category:Accountancy and within that is accounting systems category which is where many of the articles I have contributed are found.

A sub section of the Business and Economics, set aside for accountancy, could be setup and we could take the articles one by one and contribute to them. NilssonDenver 00:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

(I still think the accounting template is inappropriate as it will never be able to handle all related articles)

I agree that Accounting needs its own project, as the ongoing discussions are only the tip of iceberg compared with what is to come. The article needs a lot of work, and our objective should be to ensure the article status is improved so that is no longer part of the group of "All articles with unsourced statements". Amazingly for a topic with such a rich selection of academic material, there is no heading at the end of the article for references - very few contributors have citied their sources! Even as I write, people are adding to the article and are not citing their sources, and as long as this continues, this article will fail to meet Misplaced Pages content criteria.--Gavin Collins 20:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Reference

1. The science of accounts: Bookkeeping rooted in the ideal of science ( McMillan, Keith P., The Accounting Historians Journal, December 1998)

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