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  Topic Overview
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   Added: 25 March 2003
   Updated: 03 April 2007
  KO Overview
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   Added: 29 September 2006
   Updated: 29 September 2006
 
Accounting    
        
Good financial control is vital to the survival of any business, including financial service providers. Accounting systems are designed to show the movement of funds through an institution. Transaction and accounting ledgers record how funds are received and used and what costs are incurred in the process of delivering services. Accountants set up a list or chart of accounts to create a structure for posting transactions to different accounts and ledgers and this determines where items will appear in financial statements. It is essential that managers understand these statements and can use them to take decisions.

One important choice institutions have to make is between manual accounting systems and computerised systems. Read our Editor's note for more information on this and search the multimedia for details of software for small scale financial institutions.

  
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TitleDefinitions of Selected Financial Terms, Ratios, and Adjustments for Microfinance
Author/ EditorCGAP and consensus group
Content Language(s)English
Type of Document Guideline
Abstract / DescriptionThe guideline begins by highlighting that the microfinance industry recognises and agrees on the need to establish standard definitions of financial terms and common indicators to assist in making comparisons between MFIs more meaningful and promote more transparency in MFI reporting. Transparency, it notes, is increasingly important in the industry as mature MFIs look to commercial funding sources and investors to support their growth.

The primary objective of this document is to put forward standard definitions for selected financial terms and to suggest a standard method of calculating certain financial ratios. The document is divided into three sections:

  1. a list of financial terms and definitions
  2. a description of financial ratios, and
  3. a brief discussion and description of financial adjustments
Keywords ANALYSIS; ACCOUNTING; REPORTING; RATIOS
Date of Publication/IssueAugust 2003
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PublisherCGAP
Number of Pages27 pp
Series TitleMicrofinance Consensus Guidelines
  
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