Definition of

Accountancy

accounting statement

Accounting can be used as a synonym for accounting.

Accounting is a term that refers to the trade or office of the accountant . The accountant, for his part, is the professional who is dedicated to accounting (the science and technique dedicated to generating useful information for making economic decisions).

For example: “The owner of the company asked me to speak with the head of accounting to analyze why profit margins are becoming smaller and smaller,” “For much of the year I dedicate myself to accounting: that's why, in my vacation, I don't want to know anything about the numbers,” “Gonzalo inherited his father's interest in accounting.”

You have to go to Latin to find the etymological origin of the word accounting. Specifically, it emanates from the sum of several components of said language: the prefix con- , which is equivalent to “together” ; the verb putare , which is synonymous with “estimate” ; the suffix -ura , which indicates a result; and the suffix -ia , which indicates “quality” .

Accounting concept

It is possible, therefore, to understand the concept of accounting in various ways. In some contexts, accounting is equivalent to accounting , since it is the trade or discipline that is responsible for collecting, analyzing, generating and transmitting knowledge linked to financial or economic information.

Taking this meaning into account, we would have to say that accounting is a discipline that, in turn, can be organized or classified into different branches, among which are the following: auditing, accounting, finance , administrative accounting...

Finance

Accounting collects, analyzes, generates and transmits knowledge associated with financial information.

A physical space

The accounting office can also be the office , office or physical space where experts keep the accounts of an entity. In this case, the accounting office is the meeting place, whether physical or symbolic, of the accountants. Accounting produces financial information that must be useful for decision making.

We cannot ignore that when we define accounting based on what a physical space would be, we find the following types:

  • Provincial accounting . As its name indicates, it is that office that within a province in question is responsible for keeping accounts of both public revenues and each and every one of the contributions that the different towns make to the general coffers of that territory.
  • Mortgage accounting . It is the term used to refer to any office that came to operate as if it were a property registry.
  • General Accounting . Within the Treasury Council there is this other office that is subordinate to a specific court and whose clear mission is to proceed to study and control everything that would be the funds owned by the monarch in power as well as the treasury in general.

Accounting in companies

It can be said that all commercial endeavors contemplate, in one way or another, accounting. A company with one hundred employees is likely to have a highly developed accounting department, with an office within its facilities and intense activity.

A woman who decides to make homemade bread and sell it in her neighborhood, on the other hand, will not have a specialist dedicated to accounting, but she will record her expenses and income and keep an informal accounting to know how much she earns from her activity.