What Is an Accounting Record?

Accounting records are the collective name for various accounting books, accounting documents, accounting statements, and other original materials such as invoices, contracts, and contracts. Sometimes it refers specifically to bookkeeping records. Accounting records refer to economic transactions that have been confirmed and measured by accounting. Use some method to record the process. In the accounting records, for each piece of data that can be confirmed and can be entered into the accounting information system for processing, a pre-designed account (the account is the reclassification and specificization of accounting elements) and related text and amounts should be used according to the double-entry accounting rules. Request to register in the books. It is an important link in accounting, and it forms a subsystem of accounting--the double-entry bookkeeping system.

Accounting records

Accounting records

Accounting records are various

The method of recording is the method of registering the economic transactions of the enterprise in the accounting books. When registering economic business, you need to use specific symbols and use specific symbols to register changes in accounting elements in the relevant accounting books. Due to different methods of responding to changes in accounting elements, different bookkeeping methods have been formed. There are mainly two types of single bookkeeping and double bookkeeping. Among them, the single-entry bookkeeping method is difficult to reflect all the economic business or the full picture of the economic business due to the limitation of the scope of its account settings; the double-entry accounting method means that for each economic business that an enterprise occurs, it must The method of simultaneous accounting records in two or more linked accounting accounts at the same amount, due to the completeness of its account system setting, the double entry accounting method can reflect the complete appearance of various economic businesses.

Record form is the way to record accounting business in the books. An account book is a book made up of interconnected account pages with a certain format. It is used to comprehensively, systematically and classifiedly record the various economic operations of the enterprise. Before carrying out the work of accounting records of daily accounting, an enterprise needs to set up relevant accounting accounts and form an accounting book system to record and respond to various economic businesses of the enterprise. ^[1]

Through the accounting records, not only the detailed and specific description and quantification of the movement of capital, but also the classification, aggregation and processing of data. Only through this process can accounting generate

The recognition and measurement of accounting elements only solve the question of whether, when and how to enter the economic information transaction of an enterprise's economic transactions or events. The results of the accounting confirmation and measurement must be recorded in the accounting information system in an appropriate manner Accounting, forming a systematic, continuous, comprehensive and comprehensive accounting data, and through the process of accounting reconfirmation, these data are compiled into the company's financial statements to form accounting information that helps users make decisions. So, what happened to the business

The text of accounting records refers to the accounting methods determined in accordance with the country's unified accounting system.

In each fiscal year, the company completes a series of accounting records and reporting procedures, which are collectively referred to as the accounting cycle. The occurrence of corporate transactions is the starting point of the accounting cycle, and the final result is the company's year-end financial statements. This section will briefly introduce the meeting

Related books

The first three steps of the counting cycle are the recording procedures that companies consistently follow when transactions occur:

(1) Analyze the nature of each transaction based on the original vouchers (such as purchase invoices, travel tickets and warehouse receipts, etc.), and record them in the various journals of the enterprise;

(2) Transfer the data from the journal to each sub-account, this process is called "posting";

(3) Prepare a trial balance table based on the balance of the classified account to verify that the balances of the borrowing and crediting are equal.

In discussing "accounting identities", we have analyzed the impact of changes in several transactions on accounting identities. Each transaction recorded by a business increases or decreases one or more assets, liabilities, owner's equity, income or expense items. In order to facilitate the accumulation of data in the financial statements, each transaction must be credited to a different account. An account is a means to record the increase or decrease of items on the financial statements of an enterprise. The simplified account format is similar to the letter "T" and is also called a T-type account. A T-type account has left and right sides, which are called "debit" and "credit", respectively. When the amount is credited to the left, it is called "debiting" the account, and when it is credited to the right, it is "credited" to the account. Investors can understand the memory by combining the records of the T-type account with the deformation of the accounting identity "asset + expense = liability + owner's equity + income", namely:

(1) Assets and expenses are on the left side of the identity, so the increase of assets and expenses should be recorded on the left side of the corresponding account, that is, "debit"; the decrease should be recorded on the right side of the corresponding account, that is, "credit";

(2) Liabilities, owner's equity, and income are on the right side of the identity, so the increase in liabilities, owner's equity, and income items should be credited to the right of the corresponding account, that is, "credit"; reductions should be credited to the left of the corresponding account , That is, "debit". The left and right sides of the account have the nature of offsetting each other, so after each transaction is recorded, we can calculate the account balance (that is, the difference between the total debit and credit). If the debit total exceeds the credit total, the account is said to have a debit balance; otherwise, it is said to have a credit balance. For example, investors often see "deferred tax credits" in their statements as the balance of the credit after the deferred tax account debits and the total credits offset.

Accounts of the same type often have the same account balance, which we call the "normal balance" of the account. In connection with the accounting identities, investors can remember this: the normal balances of asset and expense accounts are on the left (debit), and the normal balances of liabilities, owner's equity and income accounts are on the right (credit). It is very useful to know the normal balance direction of various types of accounts, and investors can learn from them whether there are abnormal events in listed companies. For example, "financial expenses" are expense accounts, and their normal balance should be on the debit side. If a company's financial expenses have a credit balance (usually indicated by a negative sign or parentheses on the statement), it is most likely caused by excessive bank deposits and interest income greater than other financial expenses.

The purpose of posting is to categorize the impact of each transaction on various types of accounts. For each transaction, the debit and credit amounts recorded in each account must be equal; at any point in time, the sum of the debit balances and the credit balances of all accounts of the enterprise must also be equal. This is determined by the auto-balance function of the accounting identity. Therefore, we can check whether there is an error in the bookkeeping process at any time by verifying whether the debit and credit amounts that have been entered into each of the classified accounts are equal.