Excel accounting template

Excel accounting template free download

This article provides details of Excel accounting template that you can download now.

Microsoft Excel software under a Windows environment is required to use this template

The Excel program is an essential tool for accounting for a business because spreadsheets allow you to annotate and control a wide variety of data. It combines the multiple functions of Excel to do calculations, perform operations and obtain percentages. Downloadable Excel templates are your greatest allies when it comes to running your business effectively.

How to keep the accounts in Excel?

The accounting system is the backbone of your business. Indeed, if there is no financial control or adequate management of the business, it becomes chaos. For this, you can therefore use the Excel templates to keep the accounts of your business as this is important. In addition, there are various options depending on the type and size of business. You can choose a basic accounting system as an Excel spreadsheet or expand and deepen it by determining more specific Excel models.

These Excel accounting templates work on all versions of Excel since 2007.

Examples of a ready-to-use spreadsheet: Download this table in Excel (.xls) format, and complete it with your specific information.

To be able to use these models correctly, you must first activate the macros at startup.

The file to download presents five Excel accounting template:

• Accounting Excel templates
• Tow Basic accounting sample template
• Small Business Accounting Spreadsheet Excel Template
• Mini Accounting Spreadsheet Excel Template

Accounting is a system meant for measuring business activities, processing of information into reports and making the  findings available  to decision-makers. The documents, which communicate these findings about the performance of an organisation in monetary terms, are called financial statements.

Usually, accounting is understood as the Language of Business. However, a business may have a lot of aspects which may not be of financial nature. As such,  a  better way to understand accounting could  be to call it The Language of Financial Decisions. The better the understanding of the language, the better is the management of financial aspects of living. Many aspects of our lives are based on accounting, personal financial planning, investments, income-tax, loans, etc. We have different roles to perform in life-the  role  of a student, of a family head, of  a manager, of an investor, etc. The knowledge of accounting is an added advantage in performing different roles. However, we shall limit our scope of discussion to a business organisation and the various financial aspects of such an organisation.

When we focus our thoughts on a business organisation, many questions (is our business profitable, should a new product line be introduced, are the sales sufficient, etc.) strike our mind. To answer questions of such nature, we need to have information generated through the accounting process. The people who take policy decisions and frame business plans use such information.

All business organisations work in an ever-changing dynamic environment. Any new programme of the organisation or of its competitor will affect the business. Accounting serves as an effective tool for measuring the financial pulse rate of the company. It is a continuous cycle of measurement of results and reporting of results to decision- makers.

Just like arithmetic is a procedural element of mathematics, book keeping is the procedural element of accounting. Figure 1 shows how an accounting system operates in business and how the flow of information occurs.

DEVELOPMENT OF ACCOUNTING DISCIPLINE

The history of accounting can be traced back to ancient times. According to some beliefs, the very art of writing originated in order to record accounting information. Though this may seem to be an exaggeration, but there is no denying the fact that accounting has a long history. Accounting records can be traced back to  the  ancient  civilizations of China, Babylonia, Greece and Egypt. Accounting was used to keep records regarding the cost of labour and materials used  in  building great structures like the Pyramids.

During 1400s, accounting grew further because the needs for information of merchants in the Venis City of Italy increased. The first known description of double entry book keeping was first published in 1994 by Lucas Pacioli. He was a mathematician and a friend of Leonardo Ileda Vinci.

The onset of the industrial revolution necessitated the development of more sophisticated accounting system, rather than pricing the goods based on guesses about the costs. The increase in competition and mass production of goods led to the rise of accounting as a formal branch of study.

With the passage of time, the corporate world grew. In  the nineteenth century, companies came up in many areas of infrastructure like the railways, steel, communication, etc. It led to a rapid growth in accounting. As the complexities of business grew, ownership and management of business was divorced. As  such, managers had to come  up with well-defined, structured systems of accounting to report the performance of the business to its owners.

Government also has had a lot to do with more accounting developments. The Income Tax brought about the concept of ‘income’. Government takes a host of other decisions, relating to education, health, economic planning, for which it needs accurate  and reliable information. As such, the government demands stringent accountability in the  corporate sector, which forces the accounting process to be as objective and formal as possible.

AN ACCOUNTANT’S JOB PROFILE: FUNCTIONS OF ACCOUNTING

A man who is involved in the process of book keeping and accounting is called an accountant. With the coming up accounting as a specialised field of knowledge, an accountant has a special place in the structure of an organisation, because he performs certain vital functions.

The following paragraphs examine the functions of accounting and what role does an accountant play in discharging these functions.

An accountant is a person who does the basic job of maintaining accounts as he is the man who is engaged in book keeping. Since the managers would always want to know the financial performance of the business. An accountant prepares profit and loss account which reports the profits/losses of the business during the accounting period, Balance Sheet, which is a statement of assets and liabilities of the business at a point of time, is also proposed by all accountants. Since both statements are called financial statements, the person who prepares them is called a financial accountant.

Accounting information serves many purposes. A part  from revealing the level of performance, it throws light on the causes of weakness and deviation from plans (in any). In this way an accountant becomes an important functionary who plays a vital role in the process of management control, which is a process of diagnosing and solving a problem. Seen from  this  point of view, an accountant can be  referred to as a management accountant.

Tax planning is an important area as far as the  fiscal management of a company is concerned. An accountant has a suggestive but very specific job to do in this regard by indicating ways to minimise the tax liability through his knowledge of concessions and incentives available under the existing taxation framework of the country.

An accountant can influence a company even by not being an employee. He can act as a man who verifies and certifies the authenticity  of accounts of a company by auditing the accounts. It is a strictly professional job and is done by persons who are formally trained and qualified for the purpose. They have an educational status and a

prescribed code of conduct like the Chartered Accountants in India and Certified Public Accountants in USA.

Information management is another area which keeps an  accountant busy. He is the one who classifies the  financial information into information for internal use (management accounting function); and information or external use (financial accounting function). Irrespective of the size and degree of automation of  a  business,  information management is a key area and many organisations are known to have perished because they failed to recognise this as an important function of an accountant because information system is imperative for effective cost control, to forecast cash needs and to plan for future growth of the organisation.

UTILITY OF ACCOUNTING

The preceding section has just brought out the importance of information. Effective decisions require accurate, reliable and timely information. The need for quantity and quality of information varies with the importance of the decision that has to be taken on the basis of that information. The following paragraphs throw light on the various users of accounting information and what do they do with that information.

Individuals may use accounting information to manage  their  routine affairs like operating and managing their bank accounts, to evaluate the worthwhileness of a  job in an organization, to invest money, to rent a house, etc.

Business Managers have to set goals, evaluate progress and initiate corrective action in case of unfavourable deviation from the planned  course of action. Accounting information is required for many such decisions—purchasing equipment, maintenance of inventory, borrowing and lending, etc.

Investors and creditors are keen to evaluate the profitability and solvency of a company before they decide to provide money to the organisation. Therefore, they are interested  to  obtain  financial information about the company in which they are contemplating an investment. Financial statements are the principal source of information  to them which are published in annual reports of a company and various financial dailies and periodicals.

Government and Regulatory agencies are charged with the responsibility of guiding  the  socio-economic system of a country in such  a way that it promotes common good. For example, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) makes it mandatory for a company to disclose certain financial information to the investing public. The government’s task of managing the  industrial economy becomes simplify  if the accounting information such as profits, costs, taxes, etc. is  presented in a uniform manner without any manipulation or ‘window- dressing’.

Central and State governments levy various taxes. The taxation authorities, therefore, need to know the income of a company to calculate the amount of tax that the company would have to pay. The information generated by accounting helps them in such computations and also to detect any attempts of tax evasion.

Employees and trade unions use the accounting information to  settle various issues related to wages, bonus, profit sharing, etc. Consumers and general public are also interested in knowing the amount of income earned by various business houses. Accounting information helps in finding whether or not a company is over charging or exploiting the customers, whether or not companies are showing improved business performance, whether or not the country is emerging from the economic recession, etc. All such aspects draw heavily on accounting information and are closely related to our standard of living.

TYPES OF ACCOUNTING

The financial literature classifies accounting into two broad categories, viz, Financial Accounting and Management Accounting. Financial accounting is primarily concerned with the preparation of financial statements whereas management accounting covers areas such as interpretation of financial statements, cost accounting, etc. Both these types of accounting are examined in the following paragraphs.

Financial accounting

As mentioned earlier, financial accounting deals with  the preparation of financial statements for the basic purpose of providing information to various interested groups like creditors, banks, shareholders, financial institutions, government, consumers,  etc. Financial statements, i.e. the income statement and the balance sheet indicate the way in which the activities of the business have been conducted during a given period of time.

Financial accounting is charged with the primary responsibility of external reporting. The users of information generated by financial accounting, like bankers, financial institutions, regulatory authorities, government, investors, etc. want the accounting information to be consistent so as to facilitate  comparison. Therefore, financial accounting  is based on certain concepts and conventions which include separate business entity, going concern concept, money  measurement  concept, cost concept, dual aspect concept, accounting period concept, matching concept, realization concept and conventions of conservatism, disclosure, consistency, etc. All such concepts and conventions would be dealt with detail in subsequent lessons.

The significance of financial accounting lies in the fact that it aids the management in directing and controlling the activities of the firm and to frame relevant managerial policies related to areas like  production, sales, financing, etc. However, it suffers from  certain drawbacks which  are discussed in the following paragraphs.

• The information provided by financial accounting is consolidated in nature. It does not indicate a break-up for different departments, processes, products and jobs. As  such, it becomes difficult to evaluate the performance of different sub-units of the organisation.
• Financial accounting does not help in knowing the cost behaviour as it does not distinguish between fixed and variable costs.
• The information provided by financial accounting is historical in nature and as such the predictability of such information  is limited.

The management of a company has to solve certain ticklish questions like expansion of business, making or buying a component, adding or deleting a product line, deciding on alternative methods of production, etc. The financial accounting information is of little help in answering these questions.

The limitations of financial accounting, however, should  not lead one to believe  that it is of no use. It is the basic foundation on which  other branches and tools of accounting analysis are based. It is  the  source of information, which can be further analysed and interpreted according to the tailor-made requirements of decision-makers.

Management accounting

Management accounting is ‘tailor-made’ accounting.  It  facilitates the management by providing accounting information in such a way so

that it is conducive for policy making and running the day-to-day operations of the business. Its basic purpose is to communicate the facts according to the specific needs of decision-makers by presenting the information in a systematic and meaningful manner. Management accounting, therefore, specifically helps in planning and control. It helps  in setting standards and in case of variances between planned and actual performances, it helps in deciding the corrective action.

An important characteristic of management accounting is that it is forward looking. Its basic focus is one future activity to be performed and not what has already happened in the past.

Since management accounting caters to  the  specific  decision needs, it does not rest upon any well-defined and set principles. The reports generated by a management accountant can be of any duration– short or long, depending on purpose. Further, the reports can  be  prepared for the organisation as a whole as well as its segments.

Cost accounting

One important variant of management accounting is the cost analysis. Cost accounting makes elaborate cost records regarding various products, operations and functions. It is the process of determining and accumulating the cost of a particular product or activity. Any product, function, job or process for which costs are determined and accumulated, are called cost centres.

The basic purpose of cost accounting is to provide a detailed break- up of cost of different departments, processes, jobs, products, sales territories, etc., so that effective cost control can be exercised.

Cost accounting also helps in making revenue decisions such as those related to pricing, product-mix, profit-volume decisions, expansion  of business, replacement decisions, etc.

The objectives of cost accounting, therefore, can be summarized in the form of three important statements, viz, to determine costs,  to  facilitate planning and control of business activities and to supply information for short- and long-term decision. Cost  accounting  has certain distinct advantages over financial accounting. Some of them have been discussed succeedingly. The cost accounting system provides data about profitable and non-profitable products and activities,  thus prompting corrective measures. It is easier to segregate and analyse individual cost items and to minimize  losses and  wastages arising from the manufacturing process. Production methods can be varied so as to minimize costs and increase profits. Cost accounting helps in making realistic pricing decisions in times of low demand, competitive conditions, technology changes, etc.

Various alternative courses of action can  be  properly  evaluated with the help of data generated by cost accounting. It would not be an exaggeration if it is said that a cost accounting system ensures maximum utilization of physical and human resources. It checks frauds and manipulations and directs the employer  and  employees  towards achieving the organisational goal.

Distinction between financial and management accounting

Financial and management accounting can be distinguished on a variety of basis like, users of information, criterion for decision making, behavioural implications, time frame, type of reports.

Table 1 presents a summary of distinctions between financial and management accounting.