Five Business Disciplines

Accounting is one of the five business disciplines that we have talked about in business 101 and I think that is the major that I am going to pursue. “Accounting is the measurement, statement, or provision of assurance about financial information primarily used by lenders, managers, investors, tax authorities and other decision makers to make resource allocation decisions between and within companies, organizations, and public agencies” (Wikipedia). Accounting is a key business discipline underpinning decision making in all organizations from the largest business to the smallest charity. An understanding of the subject would be very useful to anyone contemplating a career in management as well as to those who intend to pursue a career in accounting. In college, students need to decide on a more specific field of accounting. An accountant has many choices as to what particular field of accounting to specialize in depending on the financial information they want to analyze and how it is done. Financial accountants, tax accountants and internal auditors are all accountants in general, but require different training and work methods. A financial accountant records economic data and periodically prepares reports that show profit and other financial information of a company using the generally accepted accounting principles. The need for financial accountants is to reduce agent problems by monitoring agents’ performance and reporting the results to interested users. Financial accountants are basically used to prepare accounting information for people outside the organization or they are not involved in the day to day running of the company. A tax accountant prepares yearly tax returns for individual clients. For businesses, the tax accountant must provide data for the company’s tax returns. In many places, accountants must abide by national tax laws and regulations, but no requirement is in the US. Auditors are sponsored by the Institute of Internal Auditors