Realised-profit, matching-based, historical cost accruals accounting (HCA) has for over fifty years been repeatedly challenged as being an inadequate basis for the measurement of "income" which reports increments in the value of businesses. Such challenges continue unabated and are made by both accounting standards regulators and by academic commentators. Despite its obvious deficiencies for measuring valuation based income, and subject to concept of prudence, internationally HCA remains the dominant basis for reporting and share prices appear to be influenced by reported earnings.
This paper will go through few criticisms of our standard accounting model, look at possible alternatives and finally will provide a detailed explanation of why Historical Cost accounting is still the conventionally used method.
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