The 7 Types of Accounting

There are 7 types of accounting which is government accounting, forensic accounting, cost accounting, auditing, tax accountant, financial accounting and management accounting.

Government accounting or also known as public sector accounting, refers to the type of accounting information system used in the public sector. Government accounting includes accounting for legislative bodies and government department. The need to have a separate accounting system for the public sector arises because of the different aims and objectives of the state owned and privately owned institutions. It ensures the financial position and performance of the public major concern of many governments.

Forensic accounting is latest branch of accounting which involves the application of knowledge and accounting standards in the court of law. This field also involves the reconstruction of financial information when a complete set of financial records is not available. This set of skill can be used to reconstruct the records of a unlawful records. Forensic accountant also acts as expert witnesses in courts of law in civil and criminal disputes that require an assessment of financial effects of a loss or the detection of a financial fraud.

Cost accounting is an accounting method that aims to capture a company’s costs of production by assessing the input costs of each step of production as well as fixed cost. Cost accounting is often used within the company to aid in decision making. This branch of accounting that observes and calculate the actual costs of a company’s operations. Internal managers, rather than auditors use cost of accounting most the time to identify aspects of their company where cost can be cut or lessen.

Auditing is an efficient procedure of examining the financial information of an entity with the aim of giving an opinion on true, honest and fair view. Auditing is a critical, unbiased investigation of each and every aspect of the transactions. Moreover, mistakes and frauds manipulation in accounts or misappropriation can be detected through thorough inspection.

Tax accounting is an accounting that is tax related. It deals with business or company’s tax liabilities. Tax accountants are responsible to calculate taxes on behalf of business or company and individuals. Tax accountants tracks all the amount of transactions that the company have to pay and the due date of paying the tax. They will calculate to try lessen the amount needed to pay for tax in a legal tax framework.

Financial accounting is the process of preparing financial statements such as income statements and balance sheet for every transactions made. It is to be used by internal users and external users. External users such as shareholders or potential investor uses it to check on the financial state before making any decisions. It also allows financial accountants to track the current financial state based on incomings, outgoings, assets, liabilities and transactions made.

Management accounting includes activities to gather and prepare information intended for management for the purpose of planning, controlling, decision making, performance evaluating and managing the organization as a whole.