China’s Accounting System Vicissitude

Accounting as a process of recognition, measurement, record and the work of thebalance of assessment, as a powerful tool to provide decision-making information andmanagement of the principal means of economic activity, plays an important role inmodern market economy. Accounting system is an important part of economicmanagement system, including accounting theory, accounting rules, accounting methodand procedures of accounting work. With the rapid development of social economy,the construction of accounting system in our country is still in the process of developingand perfecting. In order to adapt to the accounting system better and promote theeconomic development, it is essential to analysis China’s accounting system vicissitudecomprehensive and systematic.This paper adopts the theory of institutional changes of new economic history,property rights theory, transaction cost theory, applies literature analysis and historicalanalysis, introduces and researches the ancient times, modern times to the moderntransformation accounting system of our country, analyzes the main body,motivation,characteristics and influence factors of accounting system vicissitude of each historicalperiod. The conclusions are: First, accounting system vicissitude is coupled with theexistence of accounting behavior. It changes from the ancient simple measuring andrecording behavior to the ancient government accounting, which including simpleaccounting bookkeeping methods and accounting department; from imperfectaccounting system in early modern times to the integration of Western accountingsystem and the beginning built of accounting legal system in early Republic of China;from the adoption of Soviet-style accounting system in early People’s Republic ofChina to the international accounting standards and the mature accountants professionalorganization in modern times. To sum up, China’s accounting system experienced theprocedure from ancient times to modern times and the establishment to change togradually prefect system tendency. Second, China’ s accounting system vicissitude isunder the influence of the degree of development of commodity economy, social levelsof productivity, the national financial need and other factors, under the Balanced andUnbalanced alternating process, and under the system of mandatory and inducedinstitutional change coexisting condition. Third, changes in our accounting systemalways keep in pace with the times. It is closely related to the economic development. According to the economic history,the innovation of this paper is systematically focus on the vicissitude process of China’s accounting system,which is valued for exploring the changes of regulations and rules of the whole accounting system.