Accounting Standard

It's basically GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which make up the religion of accountants. Be conservative. Show your work. Make the numbers honestly reflect reality to the best of your ability.

Accounting standards used to not even be a thing. That is, an extremely high tolerance was allowed in the U.S. government before the Great Depression, when so many uneducated farmers lost everything. Along came a slew of Acts, which covered the details for minimum disclosure, provided a rational approach to business analysis, and created governing bodies that would adjust to the modern era on the fly, as even the most slow dullard in the accounting fields in 1934 realized that, a hundred years later, beans would no longer be counted with socks off and toes involved.