Accounting and working in an office environment go hand in hand. Without accounting, no one would get paid, and no one would receive a bill for services rendered. But that is not everything that has to do with accounting. They watch profits, expenses and more importantly, when a company is losing profits. Unless you run your own business, you need accountants to tell you where your business is financially.
Accounting can be as simple as balancing a checkbook. Every child faces accounting situations in their life, from saving their allowances, to spending their allowances, and everything in between. This is accounting.
How is accounting crucial to other types of business? Farmers succeed or fail with accounting. Farms are based upon borrowing money to plant, and paying it back with the harvest. Accounting tracks whether there was enough crops in the year to pay back the loan, or whether the farmer needs to carry that loan over to the next year, where accounting starts all over again, this time with interest.
Accounting keeps us out of financial trouble, whether we are a business or a household. If you don't know how much you are bringing in, how much you are spending, how much is going out, things could get extremely ugly. This lack of accounting practices can lead to unnecessary fees and charges.
Bottom line, accounting is information. This information forms the balance sheet, the profit and loss statement, and the income statement.
