The Accounting Cycle
The accounting cycle is the sequence of accounting procedures needed to prepare financial statements. The steps can be summarized into three major activities: analyzing events, processing data, and communicating information.
To apply the steps in the cycle and to improve your understanding of financial statements, study the basic accounting procedures and concepts in each step. Accounting software, although greatly speeding up the processing of data, does not eliminate the need to understand the essential accounting procedures and concepts for each step.
The award-winning Basic Accounting Concepts, Principles, and Procedures self-study books provide a complete and easy reference for all the steps in the accounting cycle (including the optional reversing entries when a cycle is completed). You can click on the links below to view the accounting cycle.