Changes in Accounting Principles
What is a change in accounting principle? How do you determine if a change in principle should be reported retroactively, currently, or prospectively? How do these changes affect the financial statements?
Errors
Why do accountants make errors? What types of errors may occur? Why is it necessary to correct them? What are the ramifications of not correcting errors?
Many of you have worked as bookkeepers and accountants doing various reconciliations of different accounts. Accountants should never have accounts that are out of balance. Have you ever found instances where you end up reconciling an account and find you are off a few cents, say under a dollar? What do you normally do? For those of you who have not performed accounting, in your opinion what would be the proper procedure to follow?