Cooperative Accounting Principles

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are based on a number of assumptions that don’t apply to worker cooperatives. For example GAAP assumes people can be rented and their future earnings can be owned in the present. What would Cooperative Accounting Principles would look like under the following assumptions?

The accounting is consistent with the underlying economic activity. Goodwill is excluded from the balance sheet. The act of production adds value to the assets of the cooperative before they are sold. Realized and unrealized earnings are segregated. The accounting provides an accurate description of the current state of the cooperative without assumptions about future events. The accounting provides an expected future state of the cooperative assuming past decisions result in the anticipated events.

Anyway the point it to create a precise and technically detailed set of Cooperative Accounting Principles as a basis for future discussion. Turns out that accounting is important for worker cooperatives.