The systematic development and analysis of information about the economic affairs of an organization. Every business and many organizations that are not businesses, up to and including nations, are continually engaged in transactions involving money or goods or both. Interested and responsible parties must have access to the information.

Although published financial statements are the most widely visible products of business accounting systems and the ones with which the public is most concerned, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Most accounting data and most accounting reports are generated solely or mainly for the company's managers.

Accounting systems are designed mainly to provide information that managers and outsiders can use in decision making. They also serve other purposes: to produce operating documents, to protect the company's assets, to provide data for company tax returns, and, in some cases, to provide the basis for reimbursement of costs by clients.

Accountants share with many other people the task of analyzing cost and profit data in order to provide guidance in managerial decision making. Even if the analytical work is done largely by others, they have an interest in analytical methods because the systems they design must collect data in forms suitable for analysis.

Among the most common accounting reports are those sent to investors and others outside the management group. The reports that most likely to go to investors are called financial statements.

The balance-of-payments accounts provide a record of transactions between the residents of one country and the residents of foreign nations. The two types of accounts used are the current account and the capital account.

Encyclopedia Brittanica