The part of accounting devoted to providing information useful to the management of an organization. This is contrasted with the process of producing official accounts, which have to satisfy a company’s auditors and its Inspector of Taxes. Management accounting involves the collection and processing of information which will help in actually running a firm. This includes checking on stocks to ensure that enough are kept to avoid running out, but not so many that they incur excessive interest costs and deterioration from age before items are needed, and ensuring that the staff are not purloining them. Management accounting includes elements of operations research, checking whether the order of operations, or the processes used to deliver products, are efficient. It also includes cost accounting, to discover which operations are profitable and which cost more than they bring in.