Accountancy or accounting is the measurement, statement or provision of assurance about financial information primarily used by managers, investors, tax authorities and other decision makers to make resource allocation decisions within companies, organizations, and public agencies. The terms derive from the use of financial accounts.
Accounting is a service activity. Its function is to provide quantitative information primarily financial in nature, about economic entities, that is intended to be useful in making economic decisions, and in making reasoned choices among alternative courses of action. It is also the discipline of measuring, communicating and interpreting financial activity. Accounting is also widely referred to as the "language of business".
Financial accounting is one branch of accounting and historically has involved processes by which financial information about a business is recorded, classified, summarised, interpreted, and communicated; for public companies, this information is generally publicly-accessible. By contrast management accounting information is used within an organisation and is usually confidential and accessible only to a small group, mostly decision-makers. |
