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Introduction

Accounting as a profession has really developed over the years. According to Hendriksen (1977), accounting records concepts can be traced as far back as the Roman and Greek periods. And like other professions, such as legal or medical profession, practitioners with time, have tended to focus on specialized fields to better serve the needs of users of accounting information and organizations. The specialized fields of accounting include financial accounting, management accounting, taxation, auditing, costing, among others. Each specialized field is important and serves a particular purpose. Although generally speaking, when mention is made of accounting, it is assumed that financial accounting is being referred to, but today, the field of accounting has become so diverse that it is pertinent to properly differentiate the areas of interest.

Accounting according to Niswonger and Fess (1961:1) is concerned with the process of recording, sorting and summarizing data resulting from business transactions and events, to satisfy the needs of interested parties such as management and shareholders. The data are to a large extent but not exclusively of financial nature, and are frequently but not always stated in monetary terms. This definition can be said to refer to both financial and management accounting, the two fields of accounting that dominate the profession.

Financial accounting is prepared to cover an economic unit or business. Financial accounting among other things is used to determine the profitability of an organization (trading, profit and loss account or income and expenditure account); and to determine its financial state as at a particular date (balance sheet). Although, a general knowledge of financial accounting is needed before specialization in any of the other fields can be achieved.

Managerial accounting is concerned with providing information to managers- that is, to those who are inside an organization and who direct and control its operations (Garrison and Noreen, 1999). It employs historical and estimated data to assist management in day to day operations and in planning for future operations. It identifies specific problems and tries to find solutions or alternatives to those problems. Problems such as CVP analysis, which examines the behaviour of total revenue, total costs, and operating income as changes occur in the output level, selling price, variable cost per unit or the fixed cost of a product. In essence,

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