Lyman Mills and Its Encounter with Public Accountants' Inventory Costing Circa 1920 (Report‪)‬

Abstract: This paper addresses the schedule of cost of goods manufactured and the income statement of Lyman Mills (LM) for the year 1917. They were prepared by CPAs at the request of LM, based on the books of account and its accounting system dating from the 1850s. This system was described, but not perfectly enough, in Johnson and Kaplan's Relevance Lost [1987]. This paper compares the schedule of cost of goods manufactured and income statement prepared by CPAs with the accounts in LM's ledger summarizing its costs and performance. It leads to the conclusion that the traditional accounting system of LM was a complete accounting system different from but comparable to today's accounting systems. INTRODUCTION