Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) refer to a common set of accounting principles, standards, and procedures issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Public companies in the U.S. must follow GAAP when their accountants compile their financial statements. GAAP is set with the objective of providing information that is useful to investors, lenders, or others that provide or may potentially provide resources.

An additional objective applies to financial reporting for state and local governments: to provide information that enables taxpayers and others who use governmental financial statements to hold governments accountable.

IFRS specifies how businesses need to maintain and report their accounts. Created to establish a common accounting language, the goal of the international financial reporting standards is to make financial statements coherent and consistent across different industries and countries.

IFRS currently has complete profiles for 166 jurisdictions. including those in the European Union.   The United States uses a different system, the (GAAP).

As Normas Brasileiras de Contabilidade (NBC) foram elaboradas no intuito de regulamentar a atividade contábil no Brasil em 1976, no entanto, alguns anos depois, mais precisamente em 2006, houveram algumas adaptações para se assemelhar aos padrões internacionais, técnicos e éticos da profissão.