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BASICS
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BASIC ACCOUNTING
► Basic accounting refers to the process of recording a company's financial
transactions. It involves analyzing, summarizing and reporting these transactions to
regulators, oversight agencies and tax collection entities.
► Basic accounting is one of the key functions in almost all types of business. It is
typically performed by an accountant or a bookkeeper at a small company, or by
large finance departments with dozens of employees at larger companies.
► Without accounting, it would be impossible to determine which products were
successful, which business decisions were effective and whether the company is
generating revenue or making a profit. It would also be impossible to determine how
much taxes to pay, whether to buy or lease a property or whether to merge with
another company.
Components of Basic Accounting
► System of record-keeping
► Transactions
► Reporting
System of Record-keeping
Companies must have a rational approach to record-keeping before they begin
the accounting process. They have to set up accounts in which to store
information. Accounts fall into the following classifications:
ACCOUNTING EQUATION
limitation of the accounting
Although the balance sheet always balances out, the
equation
accounting equation doesn't provide investors information
as to how well a company is performing. Instead, investors
must interpret the numbers and decide for themselves
whether the company has too many or too few liabilities,
not enough assets, or perhaps too many assets, or is
financing the company properly to ensure long term
growth.
Transactions
The accountant is responsible for generating a number of business transactions, while
others are forwarded to the accountant from other departments of a company. Some
crucial business transactions include:
► Sales: These are transactions in which products/services are transferred from
buyers to sellers for cash or credit.
► Purchases: These are transactions that businesses require in order to obtain
materials and services necessary to accomplish their goals.
► Receipts: These are the transactions that refer to a company getting paid for
providing services or goods to customers.
► Employee’s compensation: This requires information about the number of hours
that employees spent at paid labor, which is then used to generate tax deductions,
gross wage information and other deductions, which result in net pay to employees.
Debits and Credits
Business transactions are events
that have a monetary impact on the
financial statements of an
organization. When accounting for
these transactions, we record
numbers in two accounts, where the
debit column is on the left and the
credit column is on the right.
A debit is an accounting entry that either increases
an asset or expense account, or decreases a liability
or equity account. It is positioned to the left in an
accounting entry.
DEBIT CREDIT
Cash P1,000
Revenue P1,000
ABC Corporation sells a product to a customer for
P1,000 on credit. This results in revenue of P1,000 and
cash of P1,000. ABC must record an increase of the
cash (asset) account with a debit, and an increase of the
revenue account with a credit.
DEBIT CREDIT
Revenue P1,000
ABC Corporation also buys a machine for P15,000 on
credit. This results in an addition to the Machinery fixed
assets account with a debit, and an increase in the
accounts payable (liability) account with a credit.
DEBIT CREDIT
Cash P8,000
DEBIT CREDIT
Cash P5,000
Cash P50,000
Cash P50,000
ABC Corporation pays P24,000 for the salaries of
employees.
DEBIT CREDIT
Cash P24,000
Reporting
Once all the company's transactions related to an accounting period have been
completed, the accountant consolidates the information stored in the accounts and
sort it into three documents that are collectively called financial statements. These
statements include:
► Statement of cash flows: This document contains information about the uses and
sources of cash during the reporting period. It's especially useful when the
amount of net income that appears on the income statement is different from the
net change in cash during the reporting period.