Home – Home – Jornals – Scientific journal “Vestnik NSUEM” 2024 number 2

This article is devoted to the problem of determining the semantic content of balance sheet assets and the impact of this problem on the analysis of financial statements. Discussions on this issue began by Western and domestic balance specialists of the XIX-XX century and remain relevant at the present time. Ivan Romanovich Nikolaev, one of the few proponents of dynamic balance theory among Russian balance sheet specialists of the 20th century, paid special attention to the problem of determining assets. Representing the views of accounting realism, he defended the approach according to which an asset represents the amount of costs incurred, rather than the objective value of the property. In terms of analysis, his ideas prove the futility of calculating liquidity ratios in the event that an asset is recognized as a set of expenses that have not yet been written off.