management account & financial account?

Management accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control functions.

In contrast to financial accountancy information, management accounting information is:

* usually confidential and used by management, instead of publicly reported;
* forward-looking, instead of historical;
* pragmatically computed, instead of complying with accounting standards.

This is because of the different emphasis: management accounting information is used within an organization, typically for decision-making.




Financial statements provide an overview of a business' financial condition in both short and long term. There are four basic financial statements:[1]

1. Balance sheet: also referred to as statement of financial position or condition, reports on a company's assets, liabilities and net equity as of a given point in time.
2. Income statement: also referred to as Profit and Loss statement (or a "P&L"), reports on a company's results of operations over a period of time.
3. Statement of retained earnings: explains the changes in a company's retained earnings over the reporting period.
4. Statement of cash flows: reports on a company's cash flow activities, particularly its operating, investing and financing activities.


For large corporations, these statements are often complex and may include an extensive set of notes to the financial statements and management discussion and analysis. The notes typically describe each item on the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement in further detail. Notes to financial statements are considered an integral part of the financial statements.

In a straight word,
Management Account is for Internal Use with data focusing on the needs of the divisions / departments of the company, Finance, Marketing, Production etc. highlighting the performance of these divisions/departments. A typical example is for budgetary control.
Financial Statements is for external use, shareholders, bankers and other interested external parties. The financial statements maybe audited with an auditor's report attached on it.