1.
Contract
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A contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law as a binding legal agreement. Contract is a branch of the law of obligations in jurisdictions of the civil law tradition, Contract law concerns the rights and duties that arise from agreements. A contract arises when the parties agree that there is an agreement, formation of a contract generally requires an offer, acceptance, consideration, and a mutual intent to be bound. Each party to a contract must have capacity to enter the agreement, minors, intoxicated persons, and those under a mental affliction may have insufficient capacity to enter a contract. Some types of contracts may require formalities, such as a memorialization in writing, at common law, the elements of a contract are offer, acceptance, intention to create legal relations, and consideration. Not all agreements are necessarily contractual, as the parties generally must be deemed to have an intention to be legally bound, a so-called gentlemens agreement is one which is not intended to be legally enforceable, and which is binding in honour only. In order for a contract to be formed, the parties must reach mutual assent and this is typically reached through offer and an acceptance which does not vary the offers terms, which is known as the mirror image rule. An offer is a statement of the offerors willingness to be bound should certain conditions be met. If a purported acceptance does vary the terms of an offer, it is not an acceptance but a counteroffer and, therefore, the Uniform Commercial Code disposes of the mirror image rule in §2-207, although the UCC only governs transactions in goods in the USA. As a court cannot read minds, the intent of the parties is interpreted objectively from the perspective of a reasonable person and it is important to note that where an offer specifies a particular mode of acceptance, only an acceptance communicated via that method will be valid. Contracts may be bilateral or unilateral, a bilateral contract is an agreement in which each of the parties to the contract makes a promise or set of promises to each other. For example, in a contract for the sale of a home, less common are unilateral contracts in which one party makes a promise, but the other side does not promise anything. In these cases, those accepting the offer are not required to communicate their acceptance to the offeror, in a reward contract, for example, a person who has lost a dog could promise a reward if the dog is found, through publication or orally. The payment could be conditioned on the dog being returned alive. Those who learn of the reward are not required to search for the dog, but if someone finds the dog and delivers it, the High Court of Australia stated that the term unilateral contract is unscientific and misleading. In certain circumstances, a contract may be created. A contract is implied in fact if the circumstances imply that parties have reached an agreement even though they have not done so expressly, quantum meruit claims are an example. Carbolic, a firm, advertised a smoke ball marketed as a wonder drug that would, according to the instructions
2.
Manufacturing
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Manufacturing is the value added to production of merchandise for use or sale using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation. Manufacturing engineering or manufacturing process are the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product, the manufacturing process begins with the product design, and materials specification from which the product is made. These materials are modified through manufacturing processes to become the required part. Manufacturing takes turns under all types of economic systems, in a free market economy, manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass production of products for sale to consumers at a profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more directed by the state to supply a centrally planned economy. In mixed market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree of government regulation, modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes required the production and integration of a products components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication instead, the manufacturing sector is closely connected with engineering and industrial design. Examples of major manufacturers in North America include General Motors Corporation, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, General Dynamics, Boeing, Pfizer, examples in Europe include Volkswagen Group, Siemens, and Michelin. Examples in Asia include Sony, Huawei, Lenovo, Toyota, Samsung, in its earliest form, manufacturing was usually carried out by a single skilled artisan with assistants. In much of the world, the guild system protected the privileges. Before the Industrial Revolution, most manufacturing occurred in rural areas, entrepreneurs organized a number of manufacturing households into a single enterprise through the putting-out system. Toll manufacturing is an arrangement whereby a first firm with specialized equipment processes raw materials or semi-finished goods for a second firm, manufacturing provides important material support for national infrastructure and for national defense. On the other hand, most manufacturing may involve significant social and environmental costs, the clean-up costs of hazardous waste, for example, may outweigh the benefits of a product that creates it. Hazardous materials may expose workers to health risks and these costs are now well known and there is effort to address them by improving efficiency, reducing waste, using industrial symbiosis, and eliminating harmful chemicals. The negative costs of manufacturing can also be addressed legally, developed countries regulate manufacturing activity with labor laws and environmental laws. Across the globe, manufacturers can be subject to regulations and pollution taxes to offset the costs of manufacturing activities. Labor unions and craft guilds have played a role in the negotiation of worker rights. Environment laws and labor protections that are available in developed nations may not be available in the third world, tort law and product liability impose additional costs on manufacturing
3.
Coca-Cola
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Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink produced by The Coca-Cola Company. The drinks name refers to two of its ingredients, which were kola nuts and coca leaves. The current formula of Coca-Cola remains a secret, although a variety of reported recipes. The Coca-Cola Company produces concentrate, which is sold to licensed Coca-Cola bottlers throughout the world. The bottlers, who hold exclusive territory contracts with the company, produce the product in cans and bottles from the concentrate, in combination with filtered water. A typical 12-US-fluid-ounce can contains 38 grams of sugar, the bottlers then sell, distribute and merchandise Coca-Cola to retail stores, restaurants and vending machines throughout the world. The Coca-Cola Company also sells concentrate for soda fountains of major restaurants, the Coca-Cola Company has on occasion introduced other cola drinks under the Coke name. Based on Interbrands best global brand study of 2015, Coca-Cola was the third most valuable brand. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries worldwide, confederate Colonel John Pemberton, who was wounded in the American Civil War and became addicted to morphine, began a quest to find a substitute for the problematic drug. The prototype Coca-Cola recipe was formulated at Pembertons Eagle Drug and Chemical House and he may have been inspired by the formidable success of Vin Mariani, a French coca wine. It is also worth noting that a Spanish drink called Kola Coca was presented at a contest in Philadelphia in 1885, the patent for this Spanish drink was bought by Coca-Cola in 1953. In 1885, Pemberton registered his French Wine Coca nerve tonic, in 1886, when Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton responded by developing Coca-Cola, a nonalcoholic version of French Wine Coca. The first sales were at Jacobs Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia, Pemberton claimed Coca-Cola cured many diseases, including morphine addiction, indigestion, nerve disorders, headaches, and impotence. Pemberton ran the first advertisement for the beverage on May 29 of the year in the Atlanta Journal. By 1888, three versions of Coca-Cola – sold by three separate businesses – were on the market, a co-partnership had been formed on January 14,1888 between Pemberton and four Atlanta businessmen, J. C. Mayfield, A. O. Not codified by any signed document, a statement given by Asa Candler years later asserted under testimony that he had acquired a stake in Pembertons company as early as 1887. John Pemberton declared that the name Coca-Cola belonged to his son, Charley, Charleys exclusive control over the Coca Cola name became a continual thorn in Asa Candlers side. Candlers oldest son, Charles Howard Candler, authored a book in 1950 published by Emory University, in this definitive biography about his father, Candler specifically states
4.
Finance
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Finance is a field that deals with the study of investments. It includes the dynamics of assets and liabilities over time under conditions of different degrees of uncertainty, Finance can also be defined as the science of money management. Finance aims to price assets based on their level and their expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three different sub-categories, public finance, corporate finance and personal finance. g, health and property insurance, investing and saving for retirement. Personal finance may also involve paying for a loan, or debt obligations, net worth is a persons balance sheet, calculated by adding up all assets under that persons control, minus all liabilities of the household, at one point in time. Household cash flow totals up all the sources of income within a year. From this analysis, the financial planner can determine to what degree, adequate protection, the analysis of how to protect a household from unforeseen risks. These risks can be divided into the following, liability, property, death, disability, health, some of these risks may be self-insurable, while most will require the purchase of an insurance contract. Determining how much insurance to get, at the most cost effective terms requires knowledge of the market for personal insurance, business owners, professionals, athletes and entertainers require specialized insurance professionals to adequately protect themselves. Since insurance also enjoys some tax benefits, utilizing insurance investment products may be a piece of the overall investment planning. Tax planning, typically the income tax is the single largest expense in a household, managing taxes is not a question of if you will pay taxes, but when and how much. Government gives many incentives in the form of tax deductions and credits, most modern governments use a progressive tax. Typically, as ones income grows, a marginal rate of tax must be paid. Understanding how to take advantage of the tax breaks when planning ones personal finances can make a significant impact in which it can later save you money in the long term. Investment and accumulation goals, planning how to accumulate enough money - for large purchases, major reasons to accumulate assets include, purchasing a house or car, starting a business, paying for education expenses, and saving for retirement. Achieving these goals requires projecting what they will cost, and when you need to withdraw funds that will be necessary to be able to achieve these goals, a major risk to the household in achieving their accumulation goal is the rate of price increases over time, or inflation. Using net present value calculators, the planner will suggest a combination of asset earmarking. In order to overcome the rate of inflation, the investment portfolio has to get a higher rate of return, managing these portfolio risks is most often accomplished using asset allocation, which seeks to diversify investment risk and opportunity
5.
Call centre
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A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for receiving or transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. An inbound call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information enquiries from consumers, outbound call centres are operated for telemarketing, solicitation of charitable or political donations, debt collection and market research. A contact centre is a location for centralised handling of individual communications, including letters, faxes, live support software, social media, instant message, and e-mail. It can be operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration, the contact centre is a central point from which all customer contacts are managed. Through contact centres, valuable information about company are routed to people, contacts to be tracked. It is generally a part of customer relationship management. The majority of companies use contact centres as a means of managing their customer interaction. These centres can be operated by either an in house department responsible or outsourcing customer interaction to a third party agency, during the late 1970s, call centre technology expanded to include telephone sales, airline reservations and banking systems. The term call centre was first published and recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary in 1983, the 1980s experienced the development of toll-free telephone numbers to increase the efficiency of agents and overall call volume. Call centres increased with the deregulation of long distance calling and growth in information dependent industries, as call centres expanded, unionisation occurred in North America to gain members including the Communications Workers of America and the United Steelworkers. In Australia, the National Union of Workers represents unionised workers, in Europe, Uni Global Union of Switzerland is involved in assisting unionisation in this realm and in Germany Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft represents call centre workers. During the 1990s, call centres expanded internationally and developed two additional subsets of communication, contact centres and outsourced bureau centres. In contrast to in-house management, outsourced bureau contact centres are a model of contact centre that provide services on a pay per use model. The overheads of the centre are shared by many clients, thereby supporting a very cost effective model. Automatic lead selection or lead steering is also intended to improve efficiencies and this allows inbound calls to be directly routed to the appropriate agent for the task, whilst minimising wait times and long lists of irrelevant options for people calling in. The universal queue standardises the processing of communications across multiple technologies such as fax, phone, the virtual queue provides callers with an alternative to waiting on hold when no agents are available to handle inbound call demand. Historically, call centres have been built on Private branch exchange equipment that is owned, hosted, the PBX can provide functions such as automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, and skills-based routing
6.
London School of Economics
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The London School of Economics is a public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LSE is located in Westminster, central London, near the boundary between Covent Garden and Holborn, the area is historically known as Clare Market. The LSE has more than 10,000 students and 3,300 staff and it had a total income of £340.7 million in 2015/16, of which £30.3 million was from research grants. 155 nationalities are represented amongst LSEs student body and the school has the highest percentage of students of all British universities. Despite its name, the school is organised into 25 academic departments and institutes which conduct teaching and research across a range of legal studies, in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, the School had the highest proportion of world-leading research among research submitted of any British non-specialist university. The LSE is usually considered part of the triangle of highly research-intensive universities in southeast England. It is a member of organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the European University Association. LSE has produced notable alumni in the fields of law, history, economics, philosophy, business, literature, media. Alumni and staff include 52 past or present heads of state or government and 20 members of the current British House of Commons. To 2016, 27% of all the Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded or jointly awarded to LSE alumni, current staff or former staff, LSE alumni and staff have also won 3 Nobel Peace Prizes, and 2 Nobel Prizes in Literature. Out of all European universities, LSE has educated the most billionaires according to a 2014 global census of U. S dollar billionaires, LSE graduates earn higher incomes on average than those of any other British university. The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Hutchinson, a lawyer and member of the Fabian Society, left the money in trust, to be put towards advancing its objects in any way they deem advisable. The five trustees were Sidney Webb, Edward Pease, Constance Hutchinson, William de Mattos, LSE records that the proposal to establish the school was conceived during a breakfast meeting on 4 August 1894, between the Webbs, Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw. The proposal was accepted by the trustees in February 1895 and LSE held its first classes in October of that year, in rooms at 9 John Street, Adelphi, in the City of Westminster. The School joined the federal University of London in 1900, and was recognised as a Faculty of Economics of the university, the University of London degrees of BSc and DSc were established in 1901, the first university degrees dedicated to the social sciences. Expanding rapidly over the years, the school moved initially to the nearby 10 Adelphi Terrace, then to Clare Market. The foundation stone of the Old Building, on Houghton Street, was laid by King George V in 1920, the 1930s economic debate between LSE and Cambridge is well known in academic circles. The dispute also concerned the question of the role
7.
Business process outsourcing in the Philippines
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One of the most dynamic and fastest growing sectors in the Philippines is the Information Technology - Business Process Outsourcing Industry. The IT-BPO industry plays a role in the countrys growth. The IT-BPO industry started from a contact center, the Accenture Global Resource Center. This marked the beginning of the local BPO industry in the country, in 1995, the Special Economic Zone Act, thus establishing the Philippine Economic Zone Authority, was passed by the Philippine Congress. This Act provided lower area requirements for developments and tax incentives, in 2001, a US-Based outsourcing center called the People Support had its operations moved to the Philippines, generating 8,400 jobs for the country. In 2003, the Convergys Corporation opened up two more call centers in the Philippines and it was at that time when Jack Freker, the president of Convergys Corporation, announced the incorporation of the Philippines in the revenue generation plan and the global expansion of the company. In 2005, accounting for 2. 4% of the country’s GDP, a year after, with ePLDT Ventus leading in the BPO industry, domestic economy increased by 5. 4% and 11,000 more people were employed. In 2010, the Philippines was then declared the world’s BPO capital, from this point, the BPO industry continued to grow and generate more revenue, with the industry providing the most job opportunities in the private sector. Since the 1980s, unemployment rate stayed between 8-11% in the Philippines, even if the economy did have some growth, there was always the problem of job generation. The BPO industry has the most substantial contribution to economic growth, the MTPDP has set a target to create 1.5 million jobs a year between 2004 and 2010, or a total of 10 million jobs by 2010. The BPO sector only accounted for 0. 075% of the GDP in 2000, in this sector alone, it reached a staggering one million workers by 2010 and accounted for 27% of all new jobs. Due to the lower cost of producing goods or services in another country. There are two common practices of outsourcing and these are using third party outsourcing or a captive market and these two differ based on the level of risk management, cost effectiveness or the need for managerial control. In the Philippines Captive Markets seem to be gaining some growth although the landscape still has third party holding the majority industry presence. This is due to the fact that in recent cases of crises there have been observations on positive growth for third party outsourcing firms as opposed to captive markets and this event lead to the perception of Captive markets as being less efficient than that of third party outsourcing. This is primarily used for activities with irregular frequencies or one-off projects. The usual costing method makes use of time and material costs as variable costs, in this specific model it could be used for some long-term goals for developing technology or software. This is preferred when resource requirements are lower in the country than the home country hence developing a comparative advantage
8.
Business process outsourcing to India
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Business process outsourcing to India refers to the business process outsourcing services in the outsourcing industry in India, catering mainly to Western operations of multinational corporations. As of 2012, around 2.8 million people work in outsourcing sector, annual revenues are around $11 billion, around 1% of GDP. Around 2.5 million people graduate in India every year, wages are rising by 10–15 percent as a result of skill shortage. In the second half of the 1980s, American Express consolidated its JAPAC back office operations into Gurgaon region, in the 1990s Jack Welch was influenced by K. P. Singh, to look at Gurgaon in the NCR region as a base for back office operations, pramod Bhasin, the India head of G. E. hired Raman Roy and several of his management from American Express to start this enterprise called GECIS. Raman for the first time tried out voice operations out of India, the operations in India were the Beta site for the GE Six sigma enterprise, as well. The results made GE ramp up their Indian presence and look at other locations, in 2004 GECIS was spun off as a separate legal entity by GE, called Genpact. GE has retained a 40% stake and sold a 60% stake for $500 million to two equity companies, Oak Hill Capital Partners and General Atlantic Partners, most of the work was being done by captives- a term used for in house work being done for the parent organisation. In 2000 Raman Roy and some members from GECIS quit. At the same time, an organisation called Efunds started in Mumbai and Gurgaon, vCustomer in New Delhi, one of the current big BPO firms, EXL Services, started in April 1999, and in 2012 hit $442.9 million in revenues. However, recently, most of the Indian BPOs, even smaller, most of the large players are improving the outsourced business processes by leveraging on their years of experience, and now some are offering more than just plain vanilla BPO processes. KPO, transformation and Consulting opportunities are gaining favour among large third party BPO providers like Genpact, WNS, analysts believe that India remains a vital destination for outsourcing and expect its annual GDP to grow at 8–10% for the next decade. In addition, outsourcing efforts to India are held up as a remedy for concerns about both Chinese government policy and labour force issues, such as increasing costs and shortages. The industry has been growing rapidly and it grew at a rate of 38% over 2005. For the FY06 financial year the projections is of US$7.2 billion worth of services provided by this industry, the base in terms of headcount being roughly 400,000 people directly employed in this Industry. The global BPO Industry is estimated to be worth 120–150 billion dollars, India thus has some 5–6% share of the total Industry, but a commanding 63% share of the offshore component. The U. S $7.2 billion also represents some 20% of the IT, the headcount at 400,000 is some 40% of the approximate one million workers estimated to be directly employed in the IT and BPO Sector. The related Industry dependent on this are Catering, BPO training and recruitment, transport vendors, bPO/KPO/Domestic & International Call Centres/NOC etc. are covered under the Other Service Provider Category by the Department of Telecommunications
9.
Information technology
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Information technology is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, or information, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. IT is considered a subset of information and communications technology, the term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that the new technology not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology, based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development, pre-mechanical, mechanical, electromechanical, electronic. This article focuses on the most recent period, which began in about 1940, devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick. Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s, the electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the worlds first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages was the first electronic digital computer, although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory, programming was carried out using plugs, the first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, by comparison the first transistorised computer, developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version. Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes. IBM introduced the first hard drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is stored magnetically on hard disks. Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007 almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally, 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007. Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly, one of the earliest such systems was IBMs Information Management System, which is still widely deployed more than 50 years later
10.
Supply chain
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A supply chain is a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. Supply chain activities involve the transformation of resources, raw materials. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable, importantly, it also includes coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third-party service providers, and customers. In essence, supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within, more recently, the loosely coupled, self-organizing network of businesses that cooperates to provide product and service offerings has been called the extended enterprise. As part of their efforts to demonstrate ethical practices, many companies and global brands are integrating codes of conduct and guidelines into their corporate cultures. Through these, corporations are making demands on their suppliers and verifying, through social audits, a lack of transparency in the supply chain is known as mystification, which bars consumers from the knowledge of where their purchases originated and can enable socially irresponsible practices. Supply Chain Managers are under constant scrutiny to secure the best pricing for their resources, cost Benchmarking is one effective method for identifying competitive pricing within the industry. This gives negotiators a solid basis to form their strategy on, omnichannel Supply Chain is the latest term used in retail. This is how customers can shop any time, anywhere, any place, there are a variety of supply chain models, which address both the upstream and downstream elements of supply chain management. The SCOR model, developed by a consortium of industry and the non-profit Suppl Chain Council became the de facto standard defining the scope of supply chain management. SCOR measures total supply chain performance and it is a process reference model for supply-chain management, spanning from the suppliers supplier to the customers customer. The Global Supply Chain Forum has introduced another supply chain model and this framework is built on eight key business processes that are both cross-functional and cross-firm in nature. Each process is managed by a team including representatives from logistics, production, purchasing, finance, marketing. While each process interfaces with key customers and suppliers, the processes of customer relationship management, the PCF was developed by APQC and its member organizations as an open standard to facilitate improvement through process management and benchmarking, regardless of industry, size, or geography. The PCF organizes operating and management processes into 12 enterprise-level categories, including process groups, in 2013, the Supply Chain Roadmap has been presented. It is a method where a supply chain strategy can be reviewed in an organized. The method is supported in the most important and recognised theories and practices about supply chain strategy, method is applied in four steps. The method was developed by Hernan David Perez, a supply chain manager in several industrial sectors
11.
Back office
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A back office in most corporations is where tasks dedicated to running the company itself take place. Although the operations of an office are seldom prominent, they are a major contributor to a business. Broadly speaking, back office includes roles that affect the left side of business trading statement, back offices may be located somewhere other than company headquarters. Many are in areas and countries with cheaper rent and lower labor costs, some office parks provide back offices for tenants whose front offices are in more expensive neighborhoods. Back office functions can be outsourced to consultants and contractors, including ones in other countries, examples of back-office tasks include IT departments that keep the phones and computers running, accounting, and human resources. These tasks are supported by back-office systems, secure e-commerce software that processes company information. A back-office system will keep a record of the sales and purchase transactions. Invoices, receipts, and reports can also be produced by the back-office system, maintaining your web content and technology. Management Information Systems for the Information Age Toronto, McGraw-Hill MSN Encarta Dictionary
12.
Accounting
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Accounting or accountancy is the measurement, processing and communication of financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. The modern field was established by the Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli in 1494, practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. The terms accounting and financial reporting are often used as synonyms, Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, external auditing, and tax accounting. Accounting information systems are designed to support accounting functions and related activities, Accounting is facilitated by accounting organizations such as standard-setters, accounting firms and professional bodies. Financial statements are audited by accounting firms, and are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAAP is set by various standard-setting organizations such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the United States, as of 2012, all major economies have plans to converge towards or adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards. The history of accounting is thousands of old and can be traced to ancient civilizations. By the time of the Emperor Augustus, the Roman government had access to detailed financial information, double-entry bookkeeping developed in medieval Europe, and accounting split into financial accounting and management accounting with the development of joint-stock companies. The first work on a double-entry bookkeeping system was published in Italy, both the words accounting and accountancy were in use in Great Britain by the mid-1800s, and are derived from the words accompting and accountantship used in the 18th century. In Middle English the verb to account had the form accounten, which was derived from the Old French word aconter, which is in turn related to the Vulgar Latin word computare, meaning to reckon. The base of computare is putare, which meant to prune, to purify, to correct an account, hence, to count or calculate. The word accountant is derived from the French word compter, which is derived from the Italian. Accountancy refers to the occupation or profession of an accountant, particularly in British English, Accounting has several subfields or subject areas, including financial accounting, management accounting, auditing, taxation and accounting information systems. Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of a financial information to external users of the information, such as investors. It calculates and records business transactions and prepares financial statements for the users in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. GAAP, in turn, arises from the agreement between accounting theory and practice, and change over time to meet the needs of decision-makers. This branch of accounting is also studied as part of the exams for qualifying as an actuary. It is interesting to note that two professionals, accountants and actuaries, have created a culture of being archrivals
