Book reviews;Additions to the Library, February, 1919;Index;

              Bulletin HASKINS & SELLS 23
Book Reviews
Nicholson, J. Lee, and Rohrbach, John
F. D. Cost Accounting. (New York,
Ronald Press Company, 1919.)
The authors have produced what the re­viewer
considers the most satisfactory book
on cost accounting which has come to his
notice. It answers the tests with regard to
content, arrangement, and interesting pres­entation
of the subject. It is a marked im­provement
in the matter of arrangement
over previous works of the senior author.
There is much of course which he has pre­sented
before, but such material has been
skillfully worked into the present book so
as to add rather than detract.
The outline of the book is similar to that
generally followed in well arranged books
on the subject. Briefly summarized, there
are discussed in the order stated, cost find­ing
and its functions, the elements of cost,
the methods employed, the cost records,
and the reports rendered. Following this
the author takes up the relation of the de­tail
records to the controls, the installation
of a cost system and simplified cost finding
methods.
The chapters on the accounting under
government contracts are most interesting.
"Cost-plus contracts," which came with the
war, may have served most of their useful­ness.
They may have been good or bad so
far as economy is concerned, judged from
the point of view of the government. They
served at least to bring the subject of cost
accounting to the attention of a large num­ber
of persons and stimulate much interest
in it. The authors of the book under re­view
have offered a most complete exposi­tion
of cost-plus contracts and their ac­counting
which, if only for historical pur­poses,
would be decidedly worth while.
The chapter on suspension or cancella­tion
of contracts is most timely and will be
seized upon with avidity by the many per­sons
who are in the throes of settling gov­ernment
contracts terminated by the war.
In the opinion of the reviewer, if the
statement may be made without detracting
in any way from the rest of the book, es-