ABSTRACT
The aim of the book so far has been broadly to provide you with an understanding of the basic principles of accounting, particularly with regard to the balance sheet and the profit and loss account, and to enable you to prepare final accounts from a set of transactions. It will no doubt have become apparent, however, in working through activities and examples, that the system adopted becomes more of a problem as the number of transactions increases. In practice a business with a large number of transactions would need to use a system which is able to cope rather more effectively with increased amounts of data. The system of pluses and minuses, made on the face of a balance sheet and profit and loss account, will not do. In practice a business is likely to use one, or a combination, of the following:
a system of ledger accounts, based upon the system of double-entry book-keeping
a computerized system — typically based upon the principles used to date, but with a capability to handle large volumes of data.
