accounting is generally considered to have two different threads, management and financial accounting. Management accounting, which seeks to meet the needs of management and financial accounting, which seeks to meet the accounting needs of all other users. The difference between the two accounts reflect the different user groups that they face. In summary, the main differences in the following way:

• The reports produced. Interim accounts tend to be for public use. That is, they contain financial information that is useful for a wide variety of users and decisions rather than being specifically designed for the needs of a particular group or set of decisions. Management accounting reports, on the other hand, are often for specific purposes. They are either designed by a separate decision in mind or a specific manager.
• Level of detail. Interim provide users with a comprehensive overview of the performance and position in the period. Therefore, information is collected and detail is often lost. Management accounting reports, however, often provide management with considerable detail to help those with special operations decision.
• Regulations. Interim, for many companies, are subject to accounting rules that try to ensure that they are manufactured with standard materials in standard format. Law and accounting rule setters make these rules. Since management accounting reports are for internal use only, there are no rules from external sources regarding the form and content of reports. They can be designed to meet the needs of individual managers.
• Reporting interval. For most companies, the interim accounts produced annually, although many large companies produce half-yearly reports and some produce quarterly ones. Management accounting reports are produced as often as required by management. In many companies, managers are provided with specific reports on monthly, weekly or even daily, which allows them to monitor your progress often. In addition, a special-purpose reports will be ready when required (for example, to evaluate a proposal to buy a piece of machinery).
• periods. Interim results reflect the performance and position the company for the last season. In fact, they are backward looking. Management accounting reports, on the other hand, often providing information on future performance and past performance. It is all too simplistic, however, to suggest that the financial statements incorporate accounting never expectations about the future. Sometimes, companies will release projected information to other users in order to raise capital or to fight off unwanted takeover.
• Range and quality of information. Interim accounting focus information that can be calculated in monetary terms. Management accounting also produces such reports, but is also likely to produce reports containing information about non-financial nature, such as measures of physical quantities of inventories (stocks) and output. Financial accounting puts more emphasis on the use of objective and verifiable evidence when reporting. Management accounting reports use information is less objective and verifiable, but they provide managers with the information they need.

We see from this that the accounts is less constrained than financial accounting. It may draw on various sources and use information have varying degrees of reliability. The only real test to be applied in assessing the value of information for managers is whether it improves the quality of decision.

The difference between these two areas, reflecting to some extent, differences in access to financial information. Administrators have much more control over the form and content of the information they receive. Other users have to rely on what the managers are willing to give or what financial regulation reporting state should provide. Although the scale of financial statements accounting has increased over time, the fear of loss of competitive advantage and user ignorance about the reliability of the forecast data led companies to pass provide other users with detailed and comprehensive information that is available to management.