Bookkeeping is, at its simplest, the recording of financial transactions.

Typically these are made into the day books or journals. For instance the cash book.

At the end of each month the totals are then posted into the books of account to produce a trial balance.

By splitting the transactions into many individual day books it becomes easier to track back and find errors as well as resolving any other questions.

The accountancy world has many abbreviations, here are just a few

• A/C – Account
• Acc – Account
• A/R – Accounts receivable
• A/P – Accounts payable
• B/S – Balance sheet
• c/d – Carried down
• b/d – Brought down
• c/f – Carried forward
• b/f – Brought forward
• Dr – Debit
• Cr – Credit
• G/L – General ledger; (or N/L – nominal ledger)
• P&L – Profit and loss; (or I/S – income statement)
• P/R – Payroll
• PP&E – Property, plant and equipment
• TB – Trial Balance
• GST – Goods and services tax
• VAT – Value added tax
• CST – Central sale tax
• TDS – Tax deducted at source
• AMT – Alternate minimum tax
• EBITDA – Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation
• EBDTA – Earnings before depreciation, taxes and amortisation
• EBT – Earnings before tax
• EAT – Earnings after tax
• PAT – Profit after tax
• PBT – Profit before tax
• Depr – Depreciation
• Dep – Depreciation
• CPO – Cash paid out