Study on the Accounting Process of Wartime Requisition Supplies for Troops and Booties
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Hur Kyung 
Published: June 2018

From 2009, with the adoption of the accrual basis an double entry book-keeping principles in ROK's government accounting system, the reality of government accounting has been understood and provided through the financial statements that follow these two principles. We are now able to understand the financial position as well as the public financial operation situation more synthetically and systematically and be provided of useful financial information with the financial statements(including statement of financial position, statement of public financial operation, statement of changes in net assets and notes) given with the two principles applied to them. Through the financial statements written under the government accounting standards, the effectiveness of the performance evaluation on financial businesses by different cost accounting and performance measurement programs has been reinforced. Moreover due to the double entry book-keeping policy's verification function, there will be an enhancement in the financial informations' reliability as well as internal regulations. Thus these financial statements are expected to become the groundwork for the continuous and systematic supervision over the nation's asset.
The Ministry of National Defense has commenced its accounting system to follow the government standards, but in the event of war, these standards are not referred to in the accounting treatment policy. Instead, the asset recognition of wartime requisition supplies for troops and booties, considerations during the restoration process after war, accounting procedures when prisoners of war are given wages, and other important issues considered during wartime exist. As for the corporate accounting standards, there are two different accounting recording processes that are utilized for different situations. The first method is for the accounting under the going concern assumption, while the other method deals with special occasions such as discontinued operation of a business.
This study analyzes and draws up a plan that can correspond to the wartime accounting measures that does not apply to the generally accepted accounting principles(GAAP) and hereby contributes to providing useful and transparent accounting information to the users of the army's accounting data such as the government, citizens, banking institutions, and military personnels. Furthermore, the army's consequences of war can be clearly presented through quick and consistent accounting treatments during wartime and appreciation of the acquired booties can attribute to introducing the accurate state of the army's current asset situation.
In order to make this proposed system work, an apparent accounting treatment policy should be written so that each business representatives of the military forces can make a consistent accounting system possible. Through this process the values of wartime booties should be assessed in order to be distributed to the rightful owners as a reward later on. In addition, the management of munition and national property should also be transparent to prevent cases where booties that have not been recorded in books be misused.
Therefore, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance should prepare a separate accounting policy for situations during wartime. Also it should mention not only the procedures of booties by presenting accounting guide for the different phases of war in the current ROK Army wartime finance support plan but book-keeping method of the same cases. Thus, in order to precisely present future outcomes of wars and contribute to the providing of useful and clear data for the information users, a more specific and definite accounting process policy should be made according to the different phases of war than today's policy.