Accounting: Basic Principals and Personal Accounting
With accounting, if everyone involved in the process of accounting followed their own system, or no system at all, there’s be no way to truly tell whether a company was profitable or not. Most companies follow what are called generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, and there are huge tomes in libraries and bookstores devoted to just this one topic. Unless a company states otherwise, anyone reading a financial statement can make the assumption that company has used GAAP.
Much of accounting though is also concerned with basic bookkeeping. This is the process that records every transaction; every bill paid, every dime owed, every dollar and cent spent and accumulated.
In what’s called double-entry bookkeeping, the liabilities are summarized. And obviously a company wants to show a higher amount of assets to offset the liabilities and show a profit. The management of these two elements is the essence of accounting. There is a system for doing this; not every company or individual can devise their own systems for accounting; the result would be chaos!
Personal accounting
On personal accounting, you balance your checkbook to note any charges in your checking account that you haven’t recorded in your checkbook. Some of these can include ATM fees, overdraft fees, special transaction fees or low balance fees, if you’re required to keep a minimum balance in your account. You also balance your checkbook to record any credits that you haven’t noted previously. They might include automatic deposits, or refunds or other electronic deposits. Your checking account might be an interest-bearing account and you want to record any interest that it’s earned.
It’s important not to confuse profit with cash flow. Profit equals sales revenue minus expenses. A business manager shouldn’t assume that sales revenue equals cash inflow and that expenses equal cash outflows. In recording sales revenue, cash or another asset is increased. The asset accounts receivable is increased in recording revenue for sales made on credit. Many expenses are recorded by decreasing an asset other than cash. For example, cost of goods sold is recorded with a decrease to the inventory asset and depreciation expense is recorded with a decrease to the book value of fixed assets. Also, some expenses are recorded with an increase in the accounts payable liability or an increase in the accrued expenses payable liability.
Standard deduction - some personal expenditures or business expenses can be deducted from your income to reduce the taxable amount of income. These expenses include items such as interest paid on your home mortgage, charitable contributions and property taxes.
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