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ACCOUNTING

27 / 01 / 2009

ACCOUNTING: meaning and examples

Good morning everyone.

It is quite common for Spanish- and Catalan-speaking students to experience confusion with the English words accounting and accountancy (= contabilidad/contabilitat in Spanish and Catalan, respectively). Many use incorrect words such as accountability (=responsibility) or countability (=the quality of being countable).

Today's words are: accounting and accountancy 

Meaning: According to a definition from Wiktionary, accounting is "the development and use of a system for recording and analyzing the financial transactions and financial status of a business or other organization." In other words, it is the work or profession of an accountant.

Example 1
With some very creative accounting, the company managed to record earnings for two years when in reality it was losing money.

NOTE: Technically, accountancy is the profession and accounting is the methodology (the actual activity of preparing the books); that is, if I am an accountant I work in accountancy and do the accounting. However, in many dialects these words are often used interchangeably and the difference is not clear.

Example 2:
Alice: What do you do?
Jack: I'm an accountant...I work in accounting.

OR

Alice: What do you do?
Jack: I'm an accountant...I work in
accountancy.

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Enjoy the rest of your day.