National accounts or
national account systems (
NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting
techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on
double-entry accounting. By design, such accounting makes the totals on both sides of an account equal even though they each measure different characteristics, for example production and the income from it. As a
method, the subject is termed
national accounting or, more generally,
social accounting. Stated otherwise, national accounts as
systems may be distinguished from the
economic data associated with those systems. While sharing many common principles with business accounting, national accounts are based on economic concepts. One conceptual construct for representing flows of all economic transactions that take place in an economy is a
social accounting matrix with accounts in each respective row-column entry.