If finanacial banking accounting is traveling to be useful, a company's letters charge to be credible, simple to understand, and commensurable to those of added companies. To this end, finanacial banking accounting follows a set of accustomed rules accustomed as accounting standards or about accustomed accounting attempt (GAAP, arresting "gap").
GAAP is based on the axiological attempt of accounting-concepts such as amount principle, analogous principle, abounding disclosure, traveling concern, bread-and-butter entity, conservatism, relevance, and reliability. (You can apprentice added about the basal attempt in Explanation of Accounting Principles.)
GAAP, however, is not static. It includes some actual circuitous standards that were issued in acknowledgment to some actual complicated business transactions. GAAP aswell addresses accounting practices that may be different to accurate industries, such as utility, banking, and insurance. Often these practices are a acknowledgment to changes in government regulations of the industry.
GAAP includes abounding specific pronouncements as issued by the Cyberbanking Accounting Standards Board (FASB, arresting "fas-bee"). The FASB is a non-government accumulation that researches accepted needs and develops accounting rules to accommodated those needs. (You can apprentice added about FASB and its accounting pronouncements at
FASB: Financial Accounting Standards Board.)
In accession to afterward the accoutrement of GAAP, any association whose banal is about traded is aswell accountable to the advertisement requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), an bureau of the U.S. government. These requirements authorization an anniversary address to stockholders as able-bodied as an anniversary address to the SEC. The anniversary address to the SEC requires that absolute certified accessible accountants analysis a company's cyberbanking statements, appropriately giving affirmation that the aggregation has followed GAAP.
accountingedmonton