Accounting for Automatic Data Processing Costs Needs Improvement

Abstract

Only about half of the 26 organizations spread the costs of long-lived hardware (equipment) over its useful life and only a few did the same with the cost of long-lived software (the instructions used to guide the equipment). The others simply charged the hardware and long-lived software to expense in the year they bought it, and few of them pointed out the resulting distortions in their reports. Thus the Congress, managers, and other readers of their reports were unaware of the unreliability of the reported data.

Document Details

• Document Type: Technical Report
• Publication Date: Feb 07, 1978
• Accession Number: AD1119709

Entities

Organizations

• United States Government Accountability Office

Tags

Communities of Interest

• Biomedical
• Human Systems
• Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

• Accounting
• Acquisition
• Application Software
• Business Administration
• Computer Programs
• Computers
• Cost Estimates
• Data Processing
• Data Processing Equipment
• Department Of Defense
• Digital Communications
• Education
• Financial Management
• Fringe Benefits
• Governments
• Management Personnel
• Military Personnel
• Money
• Personnel Management
• Processing Equipment
• Procurement
• United States

Readers

• Life Cycle Cost Analysis
• Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
• Software Engineering.