1. Accounting is a system for analyzing and recording financial operations, that is, the inflows and outflows of money from a person, company, or organization during the accounting period.
2. Higher level theoretical-practical course for professionals who will work in the field of accounting.
3. Activity performed by an accountant.
Etymology: On the countable adjective, from Latin computabĭlisfollowed by the suffixes -bileaccording to capacity for action, and -dad, with references in the Latin forms -tas, -ātisdepending on the noun.
Grammatical category: noun fem.
in syllables: accounting.
Accounting
It is called accounting to the discipline that analyzes and provides information about the economic decisions of a project or institution. If we talk about accounting, we talk about both a science, since it provides true knowledge, a technique, to the extent that it works with procedures and systems, an information system, since it can capture, process and offer conclusions about pieces of information, and a social technology, because it combines scientific knowledge to solve concrete problems of life in society.
As a final product, accounting establishes accounting or financial statement, which summarizes the economic-financial situation of a company to allow decision-making by shareholders, investors, creditors, owners and others. In modern times, the possibility of a business structure of any magnitude that does not have an adequate management of accounting parameters is not conceivable. This concept involves both the so-called small and medium-sized companies (known by the acronym of PYMES) and the large multinationals; This is due both to reasons of a financial nature, in terms of ensuring adequate profitability, and in fiscal terms, due to the pressure of federal, provincial and local tax authorities on each business structure.
It is said that the history of accounting began with the publication in Italy of the work ‘Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni e Proportionalita’ by Luca Pacioli, which was dedicated to describing accounting methods of Venetian merchants, mercantile uses, contracts and practices. of interest and change. This work was the antecedent of what is now known as “debits and credits” in accounting jargon. Since the ancient Italian republics and microstates were the great promoters of trade in previous centuries, these teachings were adapted and modified over time, without being able to retain their original essence.
There are different types of accounting, including financial accounting, which provides general information for the general public on the financial operation of a company, and cost or management accounting, which has an internal informational purpose, to analyze economic movements within a company. decision-making institution.
In this discipline there are various measurement criteria, for example historical cost, current cost, realizable value and current value. These variables are today the axes of any fundamental accounting system of companies and various businesses.
Other typical concepts of accounting are the accounting net worth, the elements of the financial statements, the patrimonial masses, the accounting packages, the accounts, the charge and credit agreement, the balance and the accounting books.
It is worth emphasizing that modern computing resources have turned the conventional approach to accounting upside down. Thus, the task of experts in this discipline has been facilitated thanks to spreadsheets and heritage or stock records, with better control of inputs and outputs and the “musts and dos” that we mentioned in previous paragraphs. . As a counterpart, accounting has increased its field of action as a result of these technical developments, and, today, public accountants and their related specialties manage to almost completely manage the human resources departments of various companies and institutions. In this way, it stands out that, beyond the undoubted technical and mathematical aspects that characterize it, accounting is, like economics, a science with important social repercussions that are part of this modernized form of daily work.
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