how is statistics important in accounting?
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Statistics studies, among other things, deviations from normals and can help to explain errors (as well as help explain how errors are propagated and where their sources can be).\n\nFor example, if you have a numerical amount with an error and you multiply that value by something known and constant (like conversion from USD to Euros, for example), that error will be multiplied by that conversion rate.\n\nStatistics uses error calculation such as standard deviation (how much a value can vary from the average amount) and goes very far into detail about sums of errors etc. and how they affect averages, errors, and final values.\n\nAdditinoally, there are some formulae that are used all throughout the sciences that can be applied to accounting, and those sciences use statistics, again, to calculate errors.  For example, growth and decay of a radioactive substance has a certain formula that uses exponential (e to the power of something), but this is also used to calculate economic growth rates and can be applied to the stock market (it can also be used to explain traffic jams and other civil engineering problems).
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Statistics can be manipulated to prove or disprove anything you want.  If you want to trust them, you will have to trust whatever entity put them together or look at the same type of statistics from several reliable sources.
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Accounting tends to be one of those subjects that you either get it or your don't.  The best advice is to keep practicing the t-table exercises until you find that "A-HA!" threshold.\n\nHere are some basics.\n\nIncome Statement\nNet Sales\n - Cost of goods sold\n   (Labor, Materials, Overhead, Delivery, etc.)\n= Gross Margin\n - Selling, General & Administrative expenses\n= Operating Profit\n - Interest\n= Profit before taxes\n\n\n\nBalance Sheet\nAssets\n Cash\n Investments\n A/R\n Inventories\n PP&E\n\nLiabilities\n A/P\n Long-term debt\n Other liabilities\n Reserves\n\nShareholder's equity\n Common stock\n Retained earnings
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The answer can be dependent on the jurisdictions involved.  For US federal income tax reporting, the method used for sales tax reporting would not be important.  For financial reporting, the materiality of the difference may be important and/or it may need to be included as a timing difference.\n\nLooking at it from the other way, most states have their own specific rules about reporting of sales and sales tax, these rules are normally are not affected by the accounting method used for income tax reporting or financial reporting.
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Statistics started out as a study of chance and the odds of games. \n\nThe original use for statistics was in predicting chance events. Jacques Bernoulli (1654-1705) wrote "The Art of Conjecture" which is the art of evaluating as exactly as possible the probabilities of things. \n\nGerolamo Cardana (1501-1576) Wrote the first book on probability, 'Liber de Ludo Aleae' which is about games of chance.\n\nRene Descartes (1596-1650) Believed that the universe had a mathematical structure. Much of his philosophy lies in that base. Although his stuff is more towards algebra than statsistics per se.\n\nRonald Fisher (1890-1962) In 1922 he gave a new definition of statistics. Its purpose was the reduction of data and he identified three fundamental problems.
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The Role of payroll processing system is part of the accounting system under the MIS, it should provide uptodate HR data, labour costs, the decision maker can make plans on hiring, moving people, outsourcing based on the info generated, its not a share in ordinary business unless you are providing payroll services.
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Accounting deals strictly with what has been done. Doing people's taxes for instance. You may give people some hints as to what they should do in the future but it is on the level of data x means y.\n\nActuarial science on the other hand deals with predictions. You have to look at trends and advise companies as to what they should do to make sure that they are dealing financially ethically with their customers but also not going to go under. \n\nFor example let's say that you would be working for a home insurance place and you notice that most years 1 home burns down. Well then you need to charge enough from your customers to deal with the cost of one of the homes burning down. YOu actually need to charge more than that because there is the chance that 2 homes could burn down and then where would you be? It seems incredibly difficult to me but if you are interested in it you should start by becoming a math major because you will be using a lot of high level statistics and calculus at the very least.
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Well... hospitality employees need to be able to perform Research, Analysis, and Statistics well. There are times when computations are done in connection to the days assignment, and you are left wondering, which test statistic should I have used. \n\nI am a hotel manager (hospitality) and I use a lot of real world equations, statistic analysis performing with the F distribution, two-tailed hypothesis, etc. I have the most difficulty with the Chi-squared analysis on some reports in the business. \n\nBesides the researching and mandatory computer computation skills... there is really not much technical skill needed.
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Accounting information such as a companies set of accounts is useful to the shareholder and prospective shareholder.\n\nThey can use the info to make informed decisions on whether to invest in the company or not.\n\nThere will also be information from auditors of companies. They will state whethet they feel the accounts are true and fair.
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It sounds as if you are referring to a more 'general' term of using "statistical analysis" to create reports.\n\nProvided you have collected data, there are certain 'queries' (usually done using something like SQL (Structured Query Language)) against a database containing that data that you can use, while applying certain criteria to filter and/or make calculations against that data.\n\nSome statistics used to create queries may start with questions like: "How many people purchased action video games between the months of june and august inclusive?"\n\nProvided that the database contains pieces of data such as the 'name', 'type' (action for example), 'price', 'number created' and 'number sold' for a number of games that a company produces, they could write a SQL query to determine how many were sold within those date ranges.\n\nThe results of those types of queries are reports; the query created from the 'statistical question' is the analysis.
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in order to do statistics you need data\n\nie.  we need number to do this
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Teaching graduate students the proper ways to analyze data statistically is one of the most difficult things- It isnt interesting to them, it's hard to grasp, and there are rules for variance, independent and dependent variables, sample populations and distribution, even and uneven sampling comparisons..on and on.
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Definitions of accounting on the Web:\n\n    * a convincing explanation that reveals basic causes; "he was unable to give a clear accounting for his actions"\n    * a system that provides quantitative information about finances\n    * accountancy: the occupation of maintaining and auditing records and preparing financial reports for a business\n    * a bookkeeper's chronological list of related debits and credits of a business; forms part of a ledger of accounts\n    * account: a statement of recent transactions and the resulting balance; "they send me an accounting every month"\n      wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn\n\n    * Accountancy (British English) or accounting (American English) is the process by which financial information about a business is recorded, classified, summarized, interpreted, and communicated. Auditing, a related but separate discipline, is the process of an independent review of financial statements in order to express an opinion as to the fairness and adherence to generally accepted accounting principles.\n      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting\n\n    * The overall process of identifying, measuring, recording, interpreting, and communicating the results of economic activity; tracking business income and expenses and using these numbers to answer specific questions about the financial and tax status of the business.\n      www.theaccountspayablenetwork.com/html/modules.php\n\n    * A service activity designed to accumulate, measure, and communicate financial information about economic entities for decision-making purposes.\n      www.finet.com.hk/accounting/a.htm\n\n    * The systematic recording, reporting, and analysis of financial transactions of a business.\n      www.unisys.com/common/investors/glossary/\n\n    * A comprehensive system for recording and summarizing business transactions.\n      www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1-05.html\n\n    * The act of collecting information on resource usage for the purpose of capacity and trend analysis, cost allocation, auditing and billing. Accounting management requires that resource consumption be measured, rated, assigned, and communicated between appropriate parties. Typical information that is gathered in accounting is the identity of the user, the nature of the service delivered, when the service began, and when it ended.\n      tiefighter.et.tudelft.nl/~arthur/aaa/aaaterms.html\n\n    * The recording, classifying, summarizing, and interpreting in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions, and events of a financial character.\n      www.business.gov/phases/launching/are_you_ready/glossary.html\n\n    * Accounting arrangement between operators concerning the declaration of accounts in Traditional Switched Transit. In Direct accounting, the operator originating the traffic sends each of the intervening operators a separate declaration and the payments due to them.\n      www.opentransit.francetelecom.com/m_tool_box/m02_glossary/m02_glossary_voice.asp\n\n    * The process of systematically recording, classifying, verifying and summarizing business transactions, and presenting this information in periodic, interpretative financial statements and reports.\n      www.ncbuy.com/credit/glossary.html\n\n    * 2003, vol. 13, issue 1, pages 69-81\n      econpapers.repec.org/article/tafacbsfi/v_3A13_3Ay_3A2003_3Ai_3A1_3Ap_3A69-81.htm\n\n    * The systematic recording, presentation and interpretation of the financial facts of an enterprise in such a manner as to permit effective management and provide the required information.\n      www.gov.nt.ca/FMBS/documents/FAMWeb/glossary.htm\n\n    * Recording information about finances in an accountable way.\n      osraids.org/index.php\n\n    * In information technology, accounting is the process of keeping track of a user's activity while accessing a network's resources, including the amount of time spent in the network, the services accessed while there and t
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Accounting is for you/your biz/your investors/board of directors, to help you keep up with your gains and losses.\n\nIt is also required for biz's for the IRS and government stuff and to apply for grants and other special needs.\n\naccounting BALANCES the books, thus it's like a math equation that lets you know if you did everything currectly by the end or not, if not you have to go back and re-balance them again (find your error(s)).
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I would go with statistical analysis. You could use it for business, although it would be great to have at least a minor in computers as stastical analysis would require data base skills. There is a long range for actuarial sciences as it is quite math/probabitliy intensive but not many people actually persue it. Also if you get a certification it is quite easy to get a job but you must pass the test first.
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Most times statistics are used in psychology to measure whether the results of an experiment shows genuinely "significant" differences within the results, or whether all of the results fit within a single range.\n\nFor example, there have been studies which "appear" to show that boys' and girls' academic performance goes in non-synchronous waves.\n\nIf you measured the performance of all the pupils in a school in a certain year in a certain subject you could tell (using chi square, for example) whether the performance of the boys (as a group) was statistically different from the performance of the girls (as a group), or whether the performance of all the students in that year, in that subject, fell within the same "range".\n\nIf there is a significant difference you can use "standard deviations" as a measure of just how big the difference is.\n\n(I don't have any URLs on hand, but you can look up "statistical significance" and "standard deviations" online.)
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Well financial accounting is more to do with the reporting requirements which rely on many accounting conventions like accrual concept, matching concept..etc..\n\nWhereas cost accounting is used more often to arrive at a product cost or cost of an activity, or a service,\n\nFin Acc is more broad based in the sense that it used for arriving at the profit/loss of a given period which would consider the financial performance of the organization.\n\nBut not cost accounting..which is Keeping account of the costs of items in production