State some of the more serious problems encountered in seeking to achieve the ideal measurement of periodic net income. Explain what accountants do as a practical alternative.
From the revenue side, there are many types of revenue transactions which require estimation. For example, it is difficult to estimate the amount of revenue to recognize for a long-term contract in a given period. Other estimation situations also prevalent such as high rates of return on products sold, net versus gross sales issues, sales with buyback options, estimating revenues in licensing arrangements and so on. During a single fiscal period it often is difficult to determine the expiration of certain costs which may benefit several periods. Business is continuous and estimates have to be made of the future if we are to systematically apportion costs to fiscal periods. Examples of items which present serious obstacles include such items as institutional advertising costs.
Accountants have established certain rules for handling revenues and costs which are applied consistently and in a systematic manner. From period to period, application of these rules generally results in a satisfactory matching of costs and revenues unless there are large changes from one period to another. These rules, influenced by conservatism in the face of the uncertainties involved, tend to charge costs to expense earlier than might be ideally desirable if we had more knowledge of the future.
Costs or expenses of the types mentioned above, by their very nature, defy any attempt to relate them to revenues of a specific period or periods. Although it is known that institutional advertising will yield benefits beyond the present, both the amount of such benefits and when they will be enjoyed are shrouded in uncertainty. The degree of certainty with which their time distribution can be forecast is so small and the results, therefore, so unreliable that the accountant writes them off as applicable to the period or periods in which the expense was incurred.
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