Basic Principles of Accounting, Golden Rules of Accounting

Basic Principles of Accounting and Golden Rules of Accounting. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) is the framework, rules and guidelines of the financial accounting profession with a purpose of standardizing the accounting concepts, principles and procedures. Top 10 Most Important Basic Accounting Principles Defined. Here is the list of top basic accounting principles that company follow quite often. Here are the basic accounting principles and concepts under this framework :

Basic Principles of Accounting

1. Business Entity

A business is considered a separate entity from the owner(s) and should be treated separately. Any personal transactions of its owner should not be recorded in the business accounting book, vice versa. Unless the owner’s personal transaction involves adding and/or withdrawing resources from the business.

2. Going Concern

It assumes that an entity will continue to operate indefinitely. In this basis, assets are recorded based on their original cost and not on market value. Assets are assumed to be used for an indefinite period of time and not intended to be sold immediately

3. Monetary Unit

The business financial transactions recorded and reported should be in monetary unit, such as INR,US Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Euro, etc. Thus, any non-financial or non-monetary information that cannot be measured in a monetary unit are not recorded in the accounting books, but instead, a memorandum will be used.

4. Historical Cost

All business resources acquired should be valued and recorded based on the actual cash equivalent or original cost of acquisition, not the prevailing market value or future value. The exception to the rule is when the business is in the process of closure and liquidation.

5. Matching Concept

This principle requires that revenue recorded, in a given accounting period, should have an equivalent expense recorded, in order to show the true profit of the business.

6. Accounting Period

This principle entails a business to complete the whole accounting process of a business over a specific operating time period. It may be monthly, quarterly, or annually. For the annual accounting period, it may follow a Calendar or Fiscal Year.

7. Conservatism

This principle states that given two options in the valuation of business transactions, the amount recorded should be the lower rather than the higher value.

8. Consistency

This principle ensures consistency in the accounting procedures used by the business entity from one accounting period to the next. It allows fair comparison of financial information between two accounting periods.

9. Materiality

Ideally, business transactions that may affect the decision of a user of financial information are considered important or material, thus, must be reported properly. This principle allows errors or violations of accounting valuation involving an immaterial and small amounts of recorded business transactions.

10. Objectivity

This principle requires recorded business transactions should have some form of impartial supporting evidence or documentation. Also, it entails that bookkeeping and financial recording should be performed with independence, that’s free of bias and prejudice.