The accounting subjects is divided into the general classification of subjects and breakdown of subjects.The former is a blanket classification of the specific content of accounting elements providing summarized information of accounts，such as“accounts receivable”，“raw materials”and other subjects，the latter is further classified on the general classification of subjects，to provide more detailed and more specific accounting information.

In order to comprehensively record and reflect various economic activities caused by the changes of assets，the account is to set up and put into use on the basis of classification by means of specific forms and methods.The basic function of the account is facilitate the classification and summarization of the various economic and business enterprise assets，liabilities and owners'equity，cost，profit and loss accordingly.According to their content，account can be divided into five categories.Asset accounts，liabilities account，owner's equity account，cost account，profit and loss account.

Each accounting record is called“an account”.Each account at least can be divided into two directions:the increases of one registration party，and the reduce in amount of the other registration party，which is the basic structure of all accounts.In order to simplifies the account，its basic structure can be simplified as left and right two directions，that is a“T-shaped”structure.

Account code，also known as the chart of accounts，is a listing of the accounts by title and numerical designation.The chart of accounts may run to hundreds of items in different companies.

For example，cash may be numbered as 11 under the first account code system and 101 under the second system.The cash account may be further divided as 101 cash-first national bank;cash-second national bank，and so on.

The account is seen in several forms.In a manually maintained bookkeeping system，the“two-column”account form is often used.

Another popular form is the“running balance”account or“three-column”account.The running balance account contains all the information shown in the twocolumn account but also provides a balance after each transaction so that the account balances for any date during the period can be easily perceived.If the account balance becomes abnormal(for example，if we overfed our bank balance，the balance of the cash account would be abnormal)，it should be placed in parentheses.