Principles before standards
Principles before standards: The ICAEW's 'N Series' of Recommendations on Accounting Principles 1942-1969, edited by Professor Stephen Zeff, was published in October 2009 in the Financial Reporting Faculty's Information for Better Markets series.
About the report
Principles before standards reproduces the ICAEW's pioneering Recommendations on Accounting Principles, issued between 1942 and 1969.
The recommendations were the UK's first authoritative guidance on accounting questions. They were non-mandatory and were superseded from the 1970s onwards by accounting standards.
The book includes an introduction by the Editor, the distinguished accounting historian and honorary FCA, Stephen Zeff. It also reproduces an extract from Professor Zeff's 1972 book, Forging accounting principles in five countries.
Other contents include an interview with former ICAEW Technical Director Michael Renshall and Professor Will Baxter's classic 1953 article, 'Recommendations on accounting theory'.
For printed copies of the report, please email bettermarkets@icaew.com.
