USERS OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION

The basic objective of accounting is to provide information which is useful for persons inside the organisation and for persons or groups outside the organisation. Accounting is the discipline that provides information on which external and internal users of the information may base decisions that result in the allocation of economic resources in society.

I. External Users of Accounting Information:

External users are those groups or persons who are outside the organisation for whom accounting function is performed. Following can be the various external users of accounting information:

1. Investors,

Those who are interested in investing money in an organisation are interested in knowing the financial health of the organisation of know how safe the investment already made is and how safe their proposed investment will be. To know the financial health, they need accounting information which will help them in evaluating the past performance and future prospects of the organisation. Thus, investors for their investment decisions are dependent upon accounting information included in the financial statements. They can know the profitability and the financial position of the organisation in which they are interested to make that investment by making a study of the accounting information given in the financial statements of the organisation.

2. Creditors.

Creditors (i.e. supplier of goods and services on credit, bankers and other lenders of money) want to know the financial position of a concern before giving loans or granting credit. They want to be sure that the concern will not experience difficulty in making their payment in time i.e. liquid position of the concern is satisfactory. To know the liquid position, they need accounting information relating to current assets, quick assets and current liabilities which is available in the financial statements.

3. Members of Non-profit Organisations.

Members of non-profit organisations such as schools, colleges, hospitals, clubs, charitable institutions etc. need accounting information to know how their contributed funds are being utilised and to ascertain if the organisation deserves continued support or support should be withdrawn keeping in view the bad performance depicted by the accounting information and diverted to another organisation. In knowing the performance of such organisations, criterion will not be the profit made but the main criterion will be the service provided to the society.

4. Government.

Central and State Governments are interested in the accounting information because they want to know earnings or sales for a particular period for purposes of taxation. Income tax returns are examples of financial reports which are prepared with information taken directly from accounting records. Governments also needs accounting information for compiling statistics concerning business which, in turn helps in compiling national accounts.

5. Consumers.

Consumers need accounting information for establishing good accounting control so that cost of production may be reduced with the resultant reduction of the prices of goods they buy. Sometimes, prices for some goods are fixed by the Government, so it needs accounting information to fix reasonable prices so that consumers and manufacturers are not exploited. Prices are fixed keeping in view fair return to manufacturers on their investments shown in the accounting records.

6. Research Scholars.

Accounting information, being a mirror of the financial performance of a business organisation, is of immense value to the research scholars who wants to make a study to the financial operations of a particular firm. To make a study into the financial operations of a particular firm, the research scholar needs detailed accounting information relating to purchases, sales, expenses, cost of materials used, current assets, current liabilities, fixed assets, long term liabilities and shareholders' funds which is available in the accounting records maintained by the firm.

II. Internal Users of Accounting Information.

Internal users of accounting information are those persons or groups which are within the organisation. Following are such internal users:

1. Owners.

The owners provide funds for the operations of a business and they want to know whether their funds are being properly used or not. They need accounting information to know the profitability and the financial position of the concern in which they have invested their funds. The financial statements prepared from time to time from accounting records depicts them the profitability and the financial position.

2. Management.

Management is the art of getting work done through others, the management should ensure that the subordinates are doing work properly. Accounting information is an aid in this respect because it helps a manager in appraising the performance of the subordinates. Actual performance of the employees can be compared with the budgeted performance they were expected to achieve and remedial action can be taken if the actual performance is not up to the mark. Thus, accounting information provides "the eyes and ears to management". 

The most important functions of management are planning and controlling. Preparation of various budgets, such as sales budget, production budget, cash budget, capital expenditure budget etc., is an important part of planning function and the starting point for the preparation of the budgets is the accounting information for the previous year. Controlling is the function of seeing that programmes laid down in various budgets are being actually achieved i.e. actual performance ascertained from accounting is compared with the budgeted performance, enabling the manager to exercise controlling case of weak performance. 

Accounting information is also helpful to the management in fixing reasonable selling prices. In a competitive economy, a price should be based on cost plus a reasonable rate of return. If a firm quotes a price which exceeds cost plus a reasonable rate of return, it probably will not get the order. On the other hand, if the firm quotes a price which is less than its cost, it will be given the order but will incur a loss on account of price being lower than the cost. So, selling prices should always be fixed on the basis of accounting data to get the reasonable margin of profit on sales.

3. Employees.

Employees are interested in the financial position of a concern they serve particularly when payment of bonus depends upon the size of the profits earned. They seek accounting information to know that the bonus being paid to them is correct.