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Various stakeholders, including managers, shareholders, creditors, credit rating agencies, analysts, consumers, employees, and the government interested in the business activities of a company, ask companies to provide a variety of information. Accounting information is the most important information among the information that these stakeholders or information users ask for a company.
Since the company's goal is to maximize profits, many users of information are interested in business performance such as profitability and safety of the company. Therefore, they ask companies for accounting information that can grasp the company's financial position, business performance, and cash flow fluctuations. Accordingly, the company analyzes various business activities or transactions and, if it is determined that the transaction is an accounting transaction, measures it in monetary units, records it in the accounting book, and regularly prepares and discloses financial statements. As such, accounting is a series of processes that identify whether a company's business activities or transactions correspond to accounting transactions, measure them in monetary units, and communicate them to information users. In other words, accounting is a series of processes that represent a company's business activities in numbers.
Accounting is largely divided into financial accounting, cost management accounting, and tax accounting, et cetera. Among them, financial accounting is accounting that provides accounting information through financial statements on a regular basis (e.g., annual, semiannual, quarterly) to external users of information such as shareholders, creditors, credit rating agencies, analysts, and consumers. Since this accounting information is provided to external users of information, companies should prepare financial statements in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principle. Since 2011, Korea has introduced the Korean International Financial Reporting Standards (K-IFRS) to all listed companies.
Financial statements, reports that provide accounting information to external information users of a company, are composed of the following five parts. First, it is a statement of financial position, a report that shows the financial position of a company as of a specific point in time. The financial position is expressed in terms of the economic resources (assets) and economic obligations (liabilities) held by the company, and the claims of the shareholders who are the owners of the company (equity). Second, it is a statement of comprehensive income, a report showing the business performance of a company during a specific period (accounting period). Business performance is expressed in terms of revenues and expenses incurred during the accounting period, as well as net income or net loss calculated by subtracting expenses from revenues. Third, it is a statement of changes in equity, a report showing changes in a company's equity during the accounting period. Fourth, it is a statement of cash flows, a report showing the cash flow of a company during the accounting period. Fifth, it is a note that provides additional information to enhance the understanding of information users about the aforementioned four reports, the statement of financial position, the statement of comprehensive income, the statement of changes in equity, and the statement of cash flows.
An external auditor judges whether a company's financial statements have been properly prepared in accordance with accounting standards and expresses an audit opinion. Therefore, a certified public accountant (CPA) who plays the role of an external auditor is also called the watchman of capitalism. In addition to external audit, CPAs are active as experts in various fields such as tax, valuation, and consulting. To become a CPA, you must acquire a certificate of CPA that proves your qualifications as the best expert in finance, business, accounting and tax. Gachon University is providing generous support for acquiring a certificate of CPA through the TALL Project. I am currently the head professor of the CPA for this project, so please feel free to contact me if you have any inquiries regarding this project. I hope you can fully realize your dreams at Gachon University.
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▲ Dept. of Global Business Administration
Prof. Bomi Song
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