Comments below.
Thanks, Lynn
At 6:03 PM +0100 1/20/05, Tom Petch wrote:
Inline,
Tom Petch
----- Original Message -----
From: "Harald Tveit Alvestrand" <harald(_at_)alvestrand(_dot_)no>
<snip>
>
> "IASA accounts" should probably be changed to "IASA general ledger
accounts" - to have a recognizable term from bookkeeping instead of
the
rather vague term "accounts".
general ledger is indeed a recognizable term from bookkeeping but it is
not the one I would want to see. Accountancy (as taught to me) divides
up the ledger into accounts, and yes, acccounts is also a recognizable
term.
There still seems to be some confusion over terms:
Per ISOC's Director of Finance - Lynn DuVal and following GAAP
practices: an organization keeps several sets of LEDGERS (sometimes
called books) and at year end the balances in the LEDGERS get rolled
up into the GENERAL LEDGER. The figures in the GENERAL LEDGER are
used to prepare the balance sheet and profit and loss statements (and
will be used to prepare the financial statements for IASA). For
completeness - during audits, the auditors sample accounting
transactions during the year and tie them to the GENERAL LEDGER
accounts.
ISOC's preference is that we stay with the term: General Ledger
Accounts. Not only is this most appropriate, but it provides a
helpful distinction.
The ledger is typically divided up into (traditionally physical
separate books)
- purchases/creditors ledger
- sales/debtors ledger
- general/impersonal ledger
- private ledger
so seeing only the general ledger gives me an incomplete, perhaps
misleading view of the financial state of an organisation. In fact, I
would want to see the private ledger first since it contains profit and
loss, trading, drawings etc.
ISOC does not run private ledgers - at all.
More generally, I would want to see the IASA accounts (an accountancy
technical term) in the ledger (another accountancy technical term).
Or do these terms change meaning as they go west across the Atlantic?
<snip>
or perhaps they change meaning when technical (terms) meets accountancy? <grin>
I'll address Margaret's comments separately, as while I understand
and agree with her position, I think it's appropriate to provide a
bit more specificity in the BCP if only to minimize surprises
downstream.
Regards,
Lynn St.Amour
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