hello and welcome today we are going to learn What is accounting?
"introduction" accounting is a language that gives information
about the financial status of an organization.
When we study accounting we are mainly learning this specialized language.
By learning this language we can communicate and understand the financial position of any
organization.
Accounting allows a company to analyze the financial performance of the business, and
look at statistics such as net profit.
"definition"
Accounting is systematic process of identifying, recording, measuring, classifying, verifying,
summarizing, interpreting and communicating financial information.
It reveals profit or loss for a given accounting period, and the value of a firm's assets,
liabilities and owners' equity.
The American Accounting Association defines accounting as "the process of identifying,
measuring and communicating economic information to permit informed judgements and decisions
by users of the information."
"THREE MAIN PARTS" Financial Accounting
One part of accounting focuses on presenting the information in the form of general-purpose
financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, etc.) to people outside of the
company.
These external reports must be prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting
principles often referred to as GAAP or US GAAP.
This part of accounting is referred to as financial accounting.
This is the information that is used by managers, shareholders, banks, creditors, the public
etc. to make decisions involving the organization and its operations.
Shareholders want information about what their investment is worth and
whether they should buy or sell shares.
This type of information would be very difficult to extract if every company used a different
system for recording their financial position.
Financial accounting information is subject to a set of ground rules that dictate how
the information is reported and this ensures uniformity.
Accounting also provide company's management with the information in shape of reports it
needs to keep the business financially healthy.
These analyses and reports are not distributed outside of the company, This area of accounting
is known as management accounting.
Another part of accounting involves compliance with government regulations pertaining to
income tax reporting.
"MODERN ACCOUNTING"
Today much of the recording, storing, and sorting aspects of accounting have been automated
as a result of the advances in computer technology.The use of computers is making these transactions
much easier to post and work for the company.
Reports of any kind can be produced with the push of a button and a quick snapshot of required
information is revealed.