Introduction to Accounting Basics

This explanation of accounting basics will introduce you to some basic accounting principles, accounting concepts, and accounting terminology. Once you become familiar with some of these terms and concepts, you will feel comfortable navigating through the explanations, quizzes, quick tests, and other features of AccountingCoach.com.

Some of the basic accounting terms that you will learn include revenues, expenses, assets, liabilities, income statement, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows. You will become familiar with accounting debits and credits as we show you how to record transactions. You will also see why two basic accounting principles, the revenue recognition principle and the matching principle, assure that a company's income statement reports a company's profitability.

In this explanation of accounting basics, and throughout all of the free materials and the PRO materials—we will often omit some accounting details and complexities in order to present clear and concise explanations. This means that you should always seek professional advice for your specific circumstances.