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Accountancy focuses on the principles for gathering and using financial data. It gives accounting a framework and practices that accountants can use to identify, collect, record and report financial information. Other related professions, such as bookkeeping, also fall under the broad umbrella of accountancy.

Additionally, accountancy involves the analysis of financial activity using accounting data. If you work as a business manager, you need to know about accountancy. If you become a business manager, you will use specific principles in the field of accountancy to make informed decisions based on financial reports and data collected by bookkeepers and overseen by accountants.

The simplest definition of accounting is the act of recording financial transactions, typically for business purposes. Accountants — the people who do the work of accounting — record financial transactions, summarize them and analyze the results. They also must report those transactions to financial regulators and tax collection agencies.

Accountancy principles are useful for accountants, but you cannot get a degree in accountancy. While pursuing a bachelor’s degree in accounting, you can also study business management, finance and bookkeeping, which are fields that use the principles of accountancy. The distinct differences between the two can be summed up as follows:

• Accounting focuses on specific processes for recording transactions and creating reports. Accountancy concentrates on broader principles without getting into detailed specifics.
• Accounting focuses on collecting and reporting, while accountancy includes many other areas, such as forecasting, auditing, bookkeeping and financial decision-making.
• Accounting concentrates on the calculations needed in creating required statements and documents, while accountancy focuses on the broader regulations, ethics and principles behind these technical processes.

Despite these differences, accounting students will become intimately familiar with the principles of accountancy during their undergraduate studies and in their careers.

“The Bachelor of Science in Accounting degree (BSACC) equips students with the necessary financial expertise to enhance organizational efficiency,” Pratt says. “By developing specialized skills in managerial accounting, estate taxation, advanced accounting research, and more, students are able to channel a passion for numbers into a rewarding career as an accounting professional.”

Ultimately, a successful accounting career requires you to have a keen understanding of the actual day-to-day processes of accounting — the how — as well as why that makes up accountancy principles. As you consider programs to jump-start your career as an accountant, seek out those that can provide a solid foundation in both.

Whether you’re seeking a complete job change or are a working accounting professional who wants to level up your skill set and move on to the next stage of your career, ���۴�ý’s online bachelor’s in accounting program provides the tools and resources you can use to make that shift. Request more information about our online degree programs, including accounting, today.