Marita Kristiansen & Norvald Monsen SYNAPS 25(2010) -9- The concepts of revenue and expenditure and their accounting effects Marita Kristiansen a and Norvald Monsen b a Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication b Department of Accounting, Auditing and Law Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration (NHH) Summary The aim of this contribution is to problematise the way the concepts of revenue and expenditure are used in the domain of accounting without taking into account their different accounting effects depending on whether the accounts are prepared to be used in for instance a limited company, a non-profit organisation, or a municipality, respectively. We suggest an expanded conceptual apparatus to be used than what is the case in present Anglo- Saxon accounting models which better reflects these effects of revenues and expenditures. A personal note Åge has for many years developed Norwegian terminology within domains which are to an ever-increasing extent influenced by English. His knowledge of specialised communication, not only within a specific domain and specific language, but also when crossing cultural borders, is impressive. We have been fortunate to have Åge as both our lecturer and colleague and have through this learned that using expressions such as ‘being sent to Coventry’ or to make use of ‘Chapter 11’ requires not only knowledge of Norwegian and English, but also of the particularities of the various cultures of the countries and domains involved. Also, Åge’s translations of financial reporting documents have not only rescued local public administrators meeting with their US colleagues, but are still useful to us in both teaching and research. 1 Introduction Reliable accounts are essential for any kind of organisation, whether it is a public limited company, a non-profit organisation, or a municipality. It is important to record revenues and expenditures to keep track of the organisation’s financial development and situation at any given time. This means that the accounts must communicate information which is understood the same way by the organisation’s stakeholders. If those communicating with each other do not have a common understanding of the knowledge units that are at the centre of the discussion, misunderstandings can easily arise. In particular, if several expressions, or terms, are used to describe the same knowledge units, or concepts, stakeholders may perceive the financial situation of the organisation differently. Also, if a term is used to describe what are in fact two different concepts, confusion is easily the result. The picture becomes even more complicated if we cross language borders, something which is frequently the case for Norwegian organisations which have stakeholders that require a parallel language presentation of the accounts, e.g. in Norwegian and English.