ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the alternatives are funds and cash. The term funds can be defined in different ways but most commonly, as working capital. Charge and discharge accounting (CDA) was used to record and report manorial, monastic and governmental affairs from the Middle Ages onwards. The government-appointed Sandilands Committee was concerned with how profit could be measured to neutralize the distortions created by the high rates of inflation. The development of funds flow accounting, which gained pace in Britain around 1970, can be interpreted as a rediscovery of the utility of CDA which began to be superseded by the DEB-based profit and loss account and balance sheet during the early modern period. The potential of these latter two statements as indicators of financial performance and position are well known. The chapter focuses on the development, elaboration and refinement of those financial statements to meet perceived user needs.
