Читать книгу QuickBooks 2022 All-in-One For Dummies - Nelson Stephen L., Stephen L. Nelson - Страница 31

The continuity assumption — accountants call it an assumption rather than a principle for reasons unknown to me — states that accounting systems assume that a business will continue to operate. The importance of the continuity assumption becomes clear if you consider the ramifications of assuming that a business won’t continue. If a business won’t continue, it becomes very unclear how one should value assets if the assets have no resale value. This sounds like gobbledygook, but think about the implicit continuity assumption built in to the balance sheet for the hot dog stand at the beginning of the day. (This is the balance sheet that shows up in Table 1-4 earlier in this chapter.)

Implicit in that balance sheet is the assumption that hot dogs and hot dog buns have some value because they can be sold. If a business won’t continue operations, no assurance exists that any of the inventory can be sold. If the inventory can’t be sold, what does that say about the owner’s equity value shown in the balance sheet?

You can see, I hope, the sorts of accounting problems that you get into without the assumption that the business will continue to operate.