Problem:

An accountant must be familiar with the concepts involved in determining earnings of a company. The amount of earnings reported for a company is dependent on the proper recognition, in general, of revenue and expense for a given time period. In some situations costs are recognized as expenses at the time of product sale; in other situations guidelines have been developed for recognizing costs as expenses or losses by other criteria.

Requirement:

Question 1: Explain the rationale for recognizing costs as expenses at the time of product sale.

Question 2: What is the rationale underlying the appropriateness of treating costs as expenses of a period instead of assigning the costs to an asset? Explain.

Question 3: Some expenses are assigned to specific accounting periods on the basis of systematic and rational allocation of asset cost. Explain the underlying rationale for recognizing expenses on the basis.

Note: Provide support for your rationale.