CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Everyone is affected by accounting information. It is seen to be an everyday activity, not minding the individual, career, organization etc. Accounting can be seen to revolve around life, as everyone, in one way or the other is involved in one accounting practice or the other. The need to have in place, a system of recording financial transactions, brought the inception of accounting as a profession. (Nolan, 1998, p.6).
Accounting is often called the “language of business” because it is used to communicate financial information. Accounting, as opined by John, Haddock Jr. and Brock (2007, p.15) “is the process by which financial information about a business is recorded, classified, summarized, interpreted and communicated to owners, managers and other interested parties.” The concept of accounting is further defined as the process of recording, classifying, selecting, measuring, interpreting and communicating financial data of an organization to enable users make decision (Longe and Kazeem, 2012, p.5).
The history of accounting as a separate discipline dates back to the end of the Nigerian civil war. Until then, accounting was not a discipline on its own, but was rather treated as an integral part of its parent discipline which was Economics. Okereke (2008, p.3).