Accounts (Financial Accounting) - Explained
What is an Account?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 18th, 2024
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What are Accounts in Financial Accounting?
An account is a record of the balance, increases, and decreases in specific assets, liability, equities, revenues, and expenses.
What is a General Ledger?
A general ledger is a record of all the accounts used by the company. A list of all ledger accounts of the company can be found in what's called the "chart of accounts",
Companies have specific names for their accounts. The General Ledger allows you to maintain consistency and always use the same account name account. A company may have a different list of accounts based on whatever they're selling or what their business operations are.
All of the accounts have numbers, which is for cataloging purposes.