Accounting has been called "the language of business". Perhaps a better term is "the language of financial decisions". The better you understand the language, the better you can manage the financial aspects of living. Personal financial planning, investments, loans, car payments, income taxes, and many other aspects of daily life are based on accounting.
Accounting is the system that measures business activities, processes that information into reports, and communicates these findings to decision makers. Financial statements are documents that report on an individual's or an organization's business in monetary amounts.
Is our business making a profit? Should we start up a new Ike of women's clothing? Are sales strong enough to warrant opening a new branch outlet? The most intelligent answers to business questions like these use accounting information. Decision makers use the information to develop sound business plans. As new programs affect the business's activities, accounting takes the company's financial pulse beat. The cycle continues as the accounting system measures me results of activities and reports the results to decision makers.
Bookkeeping is a procedural element of accounting as arithmetic is a procedural element of mathematics. Increasingly, people are using computers to do much of the detailed bookkeeping work at all levels - in households, business, and organizations of all types.