ACCOUNTING TERMS - ACCOUNTING DICTIONARY - ACCOUNTING GLOSSARY
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TRACEABILITY, COST Definition
TRACEABILITY, COST is where businesses rely on linking or tracing costs to outputs; managerial or cost accounting provides managers this information. Management accountants strive to establish causal relationships between costs and cost objects to determine why costs were incurred. The process of tracing costs to cost objects forges a necessary link so that ultimately costs can be traced to outputs, even if at an aggregated level to their main categories: Direct Costs, Indirect Costs, and General and Administrative Costs.
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NEGLIGENCE is the omission to do something which a reasonable man, guided by those ordinary considerations which ordinarily regulate human affairs, would do, or the doing of something which a reasonable and prudent man would not do.
REVERSING ENTRY is a very special type of adjusting entry. Generally, it is a debit or credit bookkeeping entry made to reverse a prior bookkeeping entry. They can be extremely useful and should be used where necessary. A reversing entry comes in two parts: the original adjusting entry, and the reverse, or opposite entry. The second entry is written by simply reversing the position of all debits and credits. Ultimately, the end result on the books is zero, but the adjusting entry serves to correctly allocate an expense, so the financial statements are correct. For example: X Company has a payroll department, and cuts checks every two weeks after tabulating hours, and calculating net pay. A large number of allocations have to be made to various withholding accounts. The accountants dont want to interfere with the operations of the payroll department. And the employees also want the department to run efficiently so they can get their pay checks on time. At the end of the year the accountants need to appropriately allocate payroll expenses, plus taxes due and payable. Rather than interfere with the payroll department the calculation is made on paper (or computer), and entered as an adjusting entry. It is marked to be reversed. After the closing entries are made, the first entries of the new year are the reversing entries. They undo the effects of the adjusting entry. If the adjusting entry is not reversed, the books will not be correct. Both the accountants and payroll department will be making entries related to payroll. The reversing entry effectively allows the accountants to make adjusting entries without causing the books to be incorrect; the payroll department continues to make routine entries, and doesnt need to make any special entries or allocations.
