Depending on the informational needs of various users of accounting information, several branches or subfields of accounting have been developed.
The various branches of accounting are:
(i) Financial Accounting
It involves recording of financial transactions and events. It is historical in nature and records are maintained for transactions and events which have already occurred. It provides financial information to the users for taking decisions. It is concerned with identification, recording, classifying and summarising of financial transactions and events and ends up with the preparation of financial statements, namely, trading and profit and loss account or income statement and balance sheet and communication of the same to the interested users. Trading and profit and loss account shows the profit or loss made during an accounting period and the balance sheet shows the financial position of the business as on a particular date.
(ii) Cost Accounting
It involves the collection, recording, classification and appropriate allocation of expenditure for the determination of the costs of products or services and for the presentation of data for the purposes of cost control and managerial decision making.
(iii) Management Accounting
It is concerned with the presentation of accounting information in such a way as to assist management in decision making and in the day-to-day operations of an enterprise. The information collected from financial accounting, cost accounting, etc. are grouped, modified and presented as per the requirements of management for discharging their functions and for decision making.
(iv) Social Responsibility Accounting
It is concerned with presentation of accounting information by business entities and other organisations from the view point of the society by showing the social costs incurred such as environmental pollution by the enterprise and social benefits such as infrastructure development and employment opportunities created by them. It arises because of corporate social responsibility.
(v) Human Resources Accounting
It is concerned with identification, quantification and reporting of investments made in human resources of an enterprise.
