Government and Not For Profit Accounting: Concepts and Practices, 6th Edition

PREFACE

The objectives of this, the sixth edition of Government and Not-for-Profit Accounting: Concepts and Practices, remain unchanged from those of the previous editions. Above all, the text aims to make students aware of the dynamism of government and not-for-profit accounting and of the intellectual challenges that it presents.

Government and not-for-profit accounting has changed dramatically in the past few decades. But as long as the nature of governments and not-for-profit organizations, and the transactions in which they engage, will evolve further in the future, so too must the corresponding accounting.

For the most part, the accounting issues faced by governments and not-for-profit organizations are far less tractable than those encountered by businesses. Businesses have the luxury of directing attention to profits—a metric that is relatively easy to define—inasmuch as the overriding objective of businesses is to earn a profit. Governments and not-for-profit entities, by contrast, have broader, much less clear-cut goals. They must determine not only how to measure their performance but also what to measure. Hence, the accounting profession is almost certain to be dealing with fundamental questions throughout the professional careers of today's students, and the pace of rapid change will continue unabated.

Obviously, we intend for this text to inform students of current accounting and reporting standards and practices—those with which they might need to be familiar in ...