The Careening Bookkeeping Machine (From W. A. Paton, “Restoration of Fixed Asset Values to the Balance Sheet,” Accounting Review, Vol. XXII, No. 2, pp. 194-210.) A young lady in the accounting department of a certain business was moving a bookkeeping machine from one room to another. As she came alongside an open stairway, she carelessly slipped and let the machine get away from her. It went careening down the stairs with a great racket and wound up at the bottom in some thousands of pieces, completely wrecked.

Hearing the crash, the office manager came rushing out, and turned rather white when he saw what had happened. “Someone tell me quickly,” he yelled,

“af that is one of our fully amortized units.” A check of the equipment cards showed that the smashed machine was, indeed, one of those which had been written off. “Thank God!” said the manager.

Explain and comment on the point of Professor Paton’s anecdote. lop5