Accounting For Decision Makers: chapter 1. Accounting—Present And Past

Public accounting

Involves the auditing of entities, often times publicly traded, by an independent third party.

Managerial accounting

Involves the use of economic and financial information to plan and control many activities of the entity and to support the management decision making process.

Statements of Financial Accounting Standards

Items established by the FASB which established standards of accounting and reporting for particular issues.

Financial Accounting Standards Board

The authoritative standards setting body of the accounting profession.

Accounting

The process of identifying, measuring, and communicating economic information about an organization for the purpose of making decisions and informed judgements.

Internal auditing

The process of reviewing the financial situation of one section of a business, such as an individual plant in a national corporation.

FASB Accounting Standards Codification

A group of standards which superseded the SFAS

Cost accounting

A subset of managerial accounting that relates to the determination and accumulation of product, process, or services costs.

Sarbanes Oxley Act

Established in 2002, this law established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board with the authority to set and enforce auditing, attestation, quality control, and ethics standards for public companies.

Bookkeeping

Procedures which are used to accumulate the financial results of many of an entity's activities, and the procedures are part of the financial accounting process

Independent auditors report

This document usually has four relatively brief paragraphs about the methods used in the audit of an entity, followed by the auditor's opinion of the data.

Cost Accounting Standards Board

This entity is responsible for establishing the standards applicable to cost accounting of government contracts in excess of $700,000, provided that the contractor is performing a total of $7.5 million or more in all such contracts.

Controller

Title used to designate the chief accounting officer of a corporation.