Assignment for you

The word ‘account’ has multiple meanings in different contexts, so you need to check the background before drawing meaning out of the word ‘account’.

If the speaker of the word ‘account’ is an ‘accountant’, then you can relate to this word pretty quickly. There are multiple definitions, as stated in this article. An accountant is a person who takes care of different accounts, i.e., he makes sure that all accounting entries are correctly recorded in appropriate accounts. For example, a credit sale made to Mr. A is recorded in the account of Mr. A and not in the account of Mr. B.

Recording of entries in the correct accounts is of utmost importance in accounting. However, today’s topic is more about discussing the term ‘account’.

Consider an account as an exclusive box. The box (or account) is for a specific title/person. Any transaction with that title shall be recorded in that box (or account). Let me give you an example from the old days. Let’s say that a vendor keeps a box for each of its credit customers. Whenever goods are sold to that credit customer on credit, the vendor adds stones in the box designated for that customer. Each stone indicates the sale of a particular weight/value. So, at any time, the vendor can count the number of rocks in that person’s box to calculate the total amount of the credit sale made to that person.

Similarly, after the writing was developed, an account (or a box) was created for each customer. Any transaction with that customer is recorded in that account (exclusive box) and kept there. So that at any time, accounting can be done for that particular customer that how much is outstanding.