What is Bookkeeping?

June 23, 2010 by Mark Currey · Leave a Comment
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Bookkeeping is the recordkeeping of the money values of the operation of a business. Bookkeeping gives the figures from which accounts are prepared but is a distinct process, prerequisite to accounting.

Basically, bookkeeping finds two kinds of information: (1) the current value, or equity, of an entity and (2) the change in value—profit or loss—taking placement in the enterprise within a singular period.

Management officials, investors, and credit grantors all demand such information: management in order to analyse the outcomes of operations, to control costs, to budget for the future, and to make financial policy decisions; investors to assess the results of business operations and make decisions about buying, holding, and selling securities; and credit grantors so as to judge the financial statements of an enterprise in finding whether to grant a loan.

Evidence of financial and numerical charts can be found for almost every society with a commercial background. Records of business contracts have been discovered in the archaelogy of Babylon, and accounts for both farms and estates were created in ancient Greece and Rome. The double-entry method of bookkeeping started with the development of the enterprising republics of Italy, and tutorials for bookkeeping were created in the 15th century in various Italian cities.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution provided a notable stimulus to accounting and bookkeeping.

The progression of manufacturing, trading, shipping, and subsidiary services made perfect financial recordkeeping a requirement. The ancestry of bookkeeping, in fact, resembles the past of commerce, industry, and government and, in some part, helped to form it. The international movement of industrial and commercial activity called for greater sophisticate decision-making methodology, which then called for greater sophistication in the selection, classification, and presentation of information, increasingly with the aid of computers. Taxation and government regulation became more detailed and resulted in higher need for information; businesses had to show available information to bolster their income tax, payroll tax, sales tax, and other tax reports. Governmental agencies and educational and other nonprofit institutions also grew in size, and the need for bookkeeping for their own operations became higher.

Although bookkeeping methodology can be rather detailed, all are based on two styles of books utilised in the bookkeeping procedure—journals and ledgers. A journal contains the daily transactions (sales, purchases, and so forth), and the ledger has the details of individual accounts. The daily records from the journals are written in the ledgers.

At the end of every month, generally, an income statement and a balance sheet are created from the trial balance posted in the ledger. The point of the income statement or profit-and-loss statement is to give an analysis of the changes that occurred in the ownership equity as a result of the events of the period. The balance sheet shows the financial position of the enterprise at a particular point in time derived from assets, liabilities, and the ownership equity.

For information about MYOB bookkeeping brisbane or MYOB training brisbane, contact Stone Consulting. Stone Consulting also does bookkeeping in Redlands.

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