Accounting and financial statements prepared by accountants are very important for today's business. Every one who is involved in business, take their decisions on the reports presented by accountants of different companies. Therefore what the accountants show in their books affects many people. This makes the word "accuracy" very important. Non-accurate statements will result in many problems. Even though accuracy is important, financial statement are not always accurate. There are different reasons for this. Some times the accountants are not ethical and they do not follow the principles of accounting. Some of these principles are principle of conservation, accruals, objectivity, disclosure, consistency, materiality, going concern, prudence concept, comparability, business entity, timeliness, stable money. If any of these principles violated, the books made will be inaccurate. Inaccuracy in accounting is not always caused by violating these principles. There are cases at which the accountants are ethical, but still their books are inaccurate. This is when special errors appear in their statements. Errors like original errors, errors of omission, errors of commission, compensating errors and errors of principle. These errors are also reasons for inaccuracy in accounting statements.
The word "accuracy" is an important fact in accounting. This word may have a simple dictionary meaning, but it surly means much more in terms of accounting. Accuracy means being correct and exact. An accountant should be accurate and must always show accurate financial statements. If the books made by an accountant are not accurate, they are simply use less. There are different definitions of accounting explained in different books. What is common between all of them is the word accuracy. For example Sandy Roberts and Jane Howard explained accounting in their book Introductory Accounting, 1996, p.5, as, accounting is the process of "Recording everyday transactions in an accurate and logical manner by setting up an appropriate accounting system.
