Accounting: What It Is And Who Needs It
If you were employed, then you must remember that there was always an accounting office, where salaries were coming from, and where you had to give all the bills for the expenses you did for the company, following that you get your money back. Accountants are not only those guys in charge with paying the bills and handling the money in order to keep a business going. They have to know the laws and to apply them in such a way that your company gets the maximum profit possible from its activity, without breaking the laws. They have to keep an evidence of profits and losses, and they prepare the papers which sometimes are required from banks or other institutions (especially when you want to get a business loan).
Regardless what kind of business you run, even if all you do is balance a checkbook, that’s still accounting. Even children have to do accounting sometimes: the decisions to save an allowance, or to spend it all on a major purchase – these belong to the category of accounting principles. Even your household is run based on accounting: you have to balance your monthly income and expenses, in order to stay out of debt (or at least get into it consciously).
For businesses, accounting is a basic, public information; an income statement being published on official websites every year.
