What are Accounting Functions?
Accounting functions are those sets of financial systems that help in the bookkeeping of financial information in the organization, financial analysis, summary creation, and reporting of transactions and act as the backbone for almost any business. Accounting as a system tries to identify, assess and record the transactions of financial nature in a very systematic approach.
Table of contents
Functions of Accounting
- Accounting helps in the maintenance of bookkeepingBookkeepingBookkeeping is the day-to-day documentation of a company’s financial transactions. These transactions include purchases, sales, receipts, and payments.read more and record keeping.
- Accounting helps collect and store financial information, transactions happening within the organization, and financial activities happening in the organization.
- It helps track several financial informationFinancial InformationFinancial Information refers to the summarized data of monetary transactions that is helpful to investors in understanding company’s profitability, their assets, and growth prospects. Financial Data about individuals like past Months Bank Statement, Tax return receipts helps banks to understand customer’s credit quality, repayment capacity etc.read more daily or monthly.
- It helps create and document financial history from day to the latest period.
- It helps in the formulation of comprehensive financial policy for the business.
- It is also utilized in the preparation of budgets and financial projectionsFinancial ProjectionsFinancial projection is a statistical forecast of a company's future revenue and expenditure based on historical market patterns, internal factors, data interpretation, anticipated market developments, and experiences. To meet production or sales targets, both short-term and long-term financial estimates are sometimes evaluated.read more.
- It also helps to reconciliationReconciliationReconciliation is the process of comparing account balances to identify any financial inconsistencies, discrepancies, omissions, or even fraud. At the end of any accounting period, reconciliation involves matching balances and ensuring that debits (credits) from one account for one transaction is same as the credit (debits) to another account for the same transaction.read more information between two sources of financial systems.
- The accounted information can be shared with the external stakeholders with the intent of business planning and growth.
- Accounting does not focus on the activities of capital budgetingCapital BudgetingCapital budgeting is the planning process for the long-term investment that determines whether the projects are fruitful for the business and will provide the required returns in the future years or not. It is essential because capital expenditure requires a considerable amount of funds.read more.
- It also helps in audit functions and curbs the internal weakness as it makes the systems accountable.
- A business or an organization can prepare and work on several journals to maintain different accounts.
- A comprehensive accounting systemAccounting SystemAccounting systems are used by organizations to record financial information such as income, expenses, and other accounting activities. They serve as a key tool for monitoring and tracking the company's performance and ensuring the smooth operation of the firm.read more ensures that the accounts of corporate expenses do not get mixed with the personal accounts of vice presidents or managers. Such instances are generally referred to as red flags.
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Types of Accounting Functions
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#1 – Management Accounting
- This type of accounting observes the performance of a business and identifies the opportunities to improve the entity’s financial health. Such a system or function recommends the management a price to set to make the business profitable.
- The management helps in the preparation of internal management reports. It looks into trends, expectations on sales, and related costs. It also helps the management in comprehensive workforce planning.
- In short, one could infer that it helps the organization make management decisions.
#2 – Financial Accounting
This type of accounting utilizes accounting transactionsAccounting TransactionsAccounting Transactions are business activities which have a direct monetary effect on the finances of a Company. For example, Apple representing nearly $200 billion in cash & cash equivalents in its balance sheet is an accounting transaction. read more and transforms them into consolidated financial statementsConsolidated Financial StatementsConsolidated Financial Statements are the financial statements of the overall group, which include all three key financial statements – income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet – and represent the sum total of its parents and all of its subsidiaries.read more. Creditors and lenders can utilize the users of the results presented by the o bookkeeping, i.e., identifying, classifying, summarizing and recording all the financial transactions in the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. It even includes the analysis of these financial statements.” url=”https://www.wallstreetmojo.com/financial-accounting/”]financial accounting[/wsm-tooltip] functions. These systems also help in historical analysis.
#3 – Internal Accounting
Internal accounting monitors and examines the controls and processes implemented within the organization to detect fraud and weakness within the management and teams.
#4 – Taxation Accounting
These account for taxes paid by the business to the revenue authority. This system ensures that the returns on taxes are paid within deadlines. Such systems additionally facilitate the planning of taxesPlanning Of TaxesTax planning is the process of minimizing the tax liability by making the best use of all available deductions, allowances, rebates, thresholds, and so on as permitted by income tax laws and rules imposed by a country's government. It contributes to better cash flow and liquidity management for taxpayers, as well as better retirement plans and investment opportunities.read more.
#5 – Cost Accounting
This accounting function helps the organization decide the amounts and types of costs it incurs. It segregates and lists down all the components of costs that the business incurs to render service or to produce finished goods.
Conclusion
The knowledge of accounting functions is critical for comprehensive business management. It helps in tactful record-keeping of resources of the organization, which in turn ensures compliance in the organization. The lenders and investors only lend and invest in businesses with sound accounting practicesAccounting PracticesAccounting practice is a set of procedures and controls used by an entity's accounting department to keep track of accounting records and entries. Other reports are generated based on accounting records, such as financial statements, cash flow statements, fund flow statements, payroll, tax workings, payment and receipts statements, and so on, and they form the basis of the auditor's reliance while auditing the financial statements.read more.
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