LibGuides: Accounting: Websites

General Resources

Accounting Terminology Guide
Provides over 1,000 different terms related to accounting.
Accounting Today
Information source with articles covering accounting technology, auditing, and practice management.
CPA Directory
Gateway website that helps you find local accountants as well as news and articles specific to accounting.
Federation of Tax Administrators
The FTA is an organization that exists to provide services such as information exchange and training to improve the quality of state tax administrations.
FindLaw: Tax Law
A useful link that gives you a better understanding of state, local, and federal government tax law.

Accounting Standards

Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASB)
Promulgates federal accounting standards after considering the financial and budgetary information needs of citizens, congressional oversight groups, executive agencies, and the needs of other users of federal financial information.
Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)
The mission of the FASB is to establish and improve standards of financial accounting and reporting for the guidance and education of the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of financial information.
Government Accounting Standards Board
Establishes and improves standards of state and local governmental accounting that will result in useful information for users of financial reports and guide and educate the public, including issuers, auditors, and users of those financial reports.
International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)
Develops in the public interest, a single set of high quality, understandable and international financial reporting standards (IFRSs) for general purpose financial statements.
International Federation of Accountants
IFAC is committed to protecting the public interest by developing high quality international standards, promoting strong ethical values, encouraging quality practice, and supporting the development of all sectors of the profession around the world.
Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
Oversees the auditors of pubclic companies in order to protect the interests of investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, fair and independent audit reports.

Accounting Certification

Business Statistics from the U.S. Government

U.S. Data and Statistics
The gateway to statistics for U.S. Federal agencies.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (US Department of Labor)
Economic statistics at the federal and state levels. Includes: Inflation & Consumer Spending; Wages, Earnings & Benefits, Productivity, Safety & Health, International, Occupations; Demographics, Employment & Unemployment, Industries and Business Costs.
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Provides an overview of the U.S. economy nationally, regionally and by industry with excellent charts.
Economic Census (US Census Bureau)
Industry specific data gathered on a five year basis (latest is 2012). Censuses include those for the construction industries, manufacturers, retail and wholesale trade, service industries, transportation, mineral industries. Based on NAICS codes. Also includes Economic Indicators and additional reports.
American Factfinder (US Census Bureau)
Industry and business facts, community profiles, links to Economic census reports. Users can search by industry or geography. A neat feature will produce free customized reports.
International Trade Administration
Includes a Data & Analysis section with state and metro level export reports, travel forecasts, industry analyses, and more.

Evaluating Websites

When using the Web for research, it is important to evaluate what you find, because no one curates or rates it. There are different methods of deciding if a source is credible, but an easy-to-remember evaluation acronym to use is CRAAP:

CURRENCY
timeliness of the information

RELEVANCE
importance of the information for your needs

AUTHORITY
source of the information

ACCURACY
reliability and correctness of the content

PURPOSE
the reason for it or why the information exists

The Big Four Accounting Firms

Industry Resources

NAICS Association
Free NAICS and SIC code lookup.
Current Industrial Reports (US Census Bureau)
U.S. Census Bureau series of annual, quarterly, or monthly reports on specific industries.
Economic Census (US Census Bureau)
Industry specific data gathered on a five year basis (latest is 2012). Censuses include those for the construction industries, manufacturers, retail and wholesale trade, service industries, transportation, mineral industries. Based on NAICS codes. Also includes Economic Indicators and additional reports.

Libraries

Accounting