Account - Definition and Overview

In accountancy, an account is a label for recording a quantity of almost anything. Most often it is a record of an amount of money owned or owed by or to a particular person or entity, or allocated to a particular purpose. It may represent amounts of money that have actually changed hands, or it may represent an estimate of the values of assets, or it may be a combination of these.

Valuation

The determination of the values to be used for accounting for assets is one of the key issues of accountancy.

Financial account

Accounts of money are financial accounts, see also chart of accounts. These include:

• bank account.
• flexible spending account.
• Individual Retirement Account.

Any activity that changes the value of a financial account is a financial transaction.

The accuracy of financial accounts often depends on the custody and accounting of assets other than money, so both auditors and more general accountants are sometimes concerned with quantities of other things, especially stocks of merchandise and other supplies.

Other

The term account is also used more generally by analogy and association with accountancy concepts. For instance, a network account or e-mail account.

External links

• See the Wiktionary definition (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Account) for a more complete definition.