What are the Importance of Accounting? Have you every think about it? Accounting is a common term for all of us in our day-to-day life. Before discussing the features and importance of accounting, first, we should know what it is.
What is Accounting?
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In simple words, accounting is a process of recording, summarizing, and analyzing financial transactions of a corporation. It is an integral part of any business. This concept originated from ancient civilizations, and it has evolved over the years.
Accounting is often called the “Language of Business”. It can be segregated into two fields (finance and management accounting). Both the forms are a part of business accounting. Financial accounting deals with statutory reporting; on the other hand, management accounting is responsible for information for internal utilities by management.
For the smooth running of a business, the business requires data, records, analysis, reports, correct information about debts, profits, assets, liabilities, and all these statistics are possible through accounting. It helps the organizations in effective decision-making.
| Diane Garnick- Accounting does not make corporate earnings or balance sheets more volatile. Accounting just increases the transparency of volatility in earnings. |
Types of Accounting
As we discussed earlier there are two types of accounting.
Financial Accounting
It works on the preparation of precise financial statements. It aims to measure the performance of a business as correctly as possible. However, financial statements are for external use and can be helpful for the internal management in making decisions.
In financial accounting, the accounting standards are crucial to enable all the stakeholders and shareholders to better understand and interpret reports of financial statements over time.
It uses the accounting principles and standards like Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), or Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises (ASPE).
Managerial Accounting
It analyzes the information collected from financial accounting. It deals with the report preparation process for business operations. The report assists the management in making effective and strategic decisions.
It is a process that enables a company to attain maximum efficiency by financial accounting review, decisions to take the best steps, and broadcasting the needed steps to all internal business managers. For example, Cost accounting works on the detailed break-up of costs for effective cost control. It is imperative for the decision-making process.
Let’s dive into the importance of accounting.
Importance of Accounting
Accounting is essential for many aspects of a business. It is beneficial for-.
Keeping the record of business transactions
It allows the systematic recording of the financial information of any corporation. Updating records enables the comparison between historical and present data for a user. It allows the users to assess the performance of a corporation over a while with the help of consistent and accurate records.
Enhancement of decision-making
It improves the decision-making for management, especially for internal users of the corporation. Internal users may be people that organize, plan and run organizations. The management team requires accounting in making effective decisions that may include geographical expansion, operational efficiency, etc.
Result communication
It helps to communicate business results to several users. The primary external users of accounting information are investors, creditors, and lenders. Investors can decide to buy a company’s shares, and lenders must analyze their risk in deciding to lend. In these cases, companies need to establish credibility with these users by providing reliable and relevant information.
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Getting legal requirements
Accounting helps to make sure reporting of financial statements of a company is legal and accurate. The U.S.IRS (Internal Revenue Service) and CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) tax authorities use accounting financial statements to declare a company’s gross revenue and net income.
Budget Planning
In every business, budgeting is a key factor. Budget planning enables a company to make strategies, expenditure and saving of money exceeding the budgeted amount. You require different previous records to make a budget. To obtain these requirements, accounting is important.
Financial institutions and Lenders
You have to present your financial status in proper order to get any loan from the banks. For this, you should have an appropriate system of accounting to show different books of records like profits recorded, assets and liabilities, taxes paid. Financial institutions will inspect them carefully before the process of taking a loan.
Profit reporting
The main focus of any business is to earn profit. In order to ascertain what they are making on their business transactions, any small or large business needs to maintain an accounting system. This allows the interested parties to decide on the progress of the business productivity.
Manage and Monitor Cash Flow
Appropriate accounting systems take care of working capital and other cash requirements in business endeavors.
Control
It is helpful to avoid losses because of theft, fraud, damage, errors, obsolescence, and mismanagement by placing numerous checks across the organization. To prevent long-term losses, the internal controls safeguard the business assets.
An Accounting system gives information that
- Assist managers to decide for assembling resources, controlling, organizing financing, and operating practices.
- Helps other users, including employees, investors, creditors, in investments, and other decisions.
It also ensures
- Proper implementation of laws and enterprise policies.
- Accuracy of accounting records.
- Effective utilization of enterprise assets.
- Avoid the losses of assets or incurring liabilities from fraudulent activities.
Conclusion
From the above description, we can conclude that accounting is helpful for an enterprise to conduct its regular practices smoothly and helps in the future progress of the enterprise. Multiple stakeholders use the financial statements to make economic decisions by the different accounting systems. I hope this blog is helpful for you to understand the importance of accounting. If you want to have accounting assignment help online then we are ready to help in accounting for you.
