Topic 3: Bookkeeping as Part of Accounting Cycle

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For management of any company to be efficient, extensive and accurate information concerning receipts and payments, assets and liabilities, depre­ciation of assets and other data about company status are required. Such information being obtained mainly from different records, additional funds and time should be invested in bookkeeping and accounting system.

In general, accounting and bookkeeping mean identifying, measuring, recording economic information about any business, bookkeeping being con­sidered the preliminary stage and part of the larger field of accounting.

The task of a bookkeeper is to ensure the record-keeping aspect of ac­counting and therefore to provide the data to which accounting principles are applied in the preparation of financial statements. Bookkeeping provides the basic accounting data by systematical recording such day-to-day financial information as income from the sale of products or services, expenses of busi­ness operations such as the cost of the goods sold and overhead expenses such as a rent, wages, salaries.

Accounting principles determine which financial events and transactions should be recorded in the bookkeeper's books. The analysis and interpretation of these records is the primary function of accounting. The various financial statements produced by accountants then provide managers with the basis for future financial planning and control, and provide other interested parties (in­vestors, the government) with useful information about the company.

Modern accounting system is considered to be a seven-step cycle. The first three steps fall under the bookkeeping function, such as: 1) the systemat­ic recording of financial transactions; 2) the transferring of the amounts from various journals to general ledger (also called "posting step"); 3) the drawing up of the trial balance.

Record keeping of companies is based on a double-entry system, due to which each transaction is recorded on the basis of its dual impact on the company's financial position. To make a complete bookkeeping record of every transaction in a journal, one should consider interrelated aspects of every transaction, and entries must be made in different accounts to keep the ins (receipts) and outs (payments) balanced.

A typical account is known to have two sides: the items on the left side are called debits, while the items on the right side are credits.

Thus, double-entry bookkeeping doesn't mean that the same transaction is entered twice, it means that the same amount of money is always debited to one account and credited to another account, each record having its own effect on the whole financial structure of the company. Certain accounts are increased with debits and decreased with credits, while other accounts are increased with credits and decreased with debits.

In the second step in the accounting cycle, the amounts from the various journals are usually monthly transferred to the company's general ledger — a procedure called posting. Posting data to the ledgers is followed by listing the balances of all the accounts and calculating whether the sum of all the debit balances agrees with the sum of all the credit balances. This procedure known as the drawing up of a trial balance and those that follow it usually take place at the end of the fiscal year. By making a trial balance, the record-keeping accuracy can be checked. The trial balance having been successfully prepared, the bookkeeping portion of the accounting cycle is completed.

The double-entry system of bookkeeping enables every company to deter­mine at any time the value of each item that is owned, how much of this value belongs to creditors, the total profit and how much belongs to the business clear of debt. Thus, one advantage of the double-entry system is that its infor­mation is complete enough to be used as the basis for making business deci­sions. Another advantage is that errors are readily detected, since the system is based on equations that must always be in balance.