Different Branches of Accounting

Accounting is the process of recording, classifying and summarizing in a significant manner in terms of money, transactions and events which are part of a financial aspect. Its function is to provide quantitative information, primarily the financial in nature that is intended to be useful in making economic decisions to who the information would be transmitted. This would be important to statement users so that they can make informed judgment and better decision in the financial standing of a company or business.

Accounting is called "the language of business" because it is the vehicle for reporting financial information about a business entity to many different groups of people. There are different groups in accounting like, management accounting, and financial accounting.

Branches of Accounting:

Management Accounting - They are concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within the organization. This would be the process of preparing management reports and accounts that provide accurate and timely financial and statistical information which is required by managers in order to make daily and short-term decisions. The reports technically shows the amount of available cash, amount of orders in hand, accounts receivable, sales revenue, state of accounts payable, outstanding debts, raw material, inventory and other statistics.
Financial Accounting or General Accounting - This is a field of accounting that treats money as a means of measuring economic performance instead of as a factor of production. The main purpose of financial accounting is to prepare financial reports that provide information about a firm's performance to external parties such as investors, creditors, and tax authorities.
Auditing - Is a systematic process of obtaining and evaluating the accounts or financial records of a governmental, business, or other entity based on criteria. Auditing focuses largely on financial information and the process may also involve examination of non-financial documents that would show information about a business's conduct.
Tax Accounting - This is the method of accounting that focuses on tax issues. This would include the preparation of tax returns and the consideration of the tax consequences of proposed business transactions.
Cost Accounting - Emphasizes the determination and the control of costs particularly the costs of manufacturing processes and of the manufactured products.
Government Accounting - Non-commercial accounting in which budgets and encumbrances form parts of the accounts, and assets are restricted for specified purposes. It mainly focuses on the proper custody of government funds and their purposes.
Budgetary Accounting - Represents the plan of financial operations for a period and through accounts and summaries, provides comparisons of actual operations with the predetermined plan.
Internal Auditing - Gives you an insight into a company's compliance issues, risk assessment, fraud prevention, corporate governance, IT auditing, and many other topics. This is done by an independent firm in order to give an objective assessment of the company's finance situation.