ABSTRACT
William A. Paton earned three academic degrees from the University of Michigan, including the Ph.D. received in 1917. In 1944 he was awarded an honorary Litt. D. by Lehigh University. He began his teaching career at the University of Michigan in 1914 and was appointed professor in 1921. Mr. Paton’s great interest in accounting theory and economics and accounting education has had a profound influence upon the theory and practice of accounting and has brought him recognition as “a teacher of teachers.” Business operation involves a constant process of shifting of both property and equity items. The accountant assumes that a statement of assets and liabilities shows the financial condition of an enterprise on the date of the statement. The accountant assumes cost transference that the cost of goods and services utilized are transferred to the resulting products and services and constitute the latter’s cost.
