This Handbook aims to provide practical guidance on the calculation and allocation of the production of various types of financial services and issues related to the compilation of the financial account and balance sheets by institutional sector in the context of from-whom-to-whom relationships. The Handbook complements the 2008 SNA and related manuals, handbooks and guides. The concepts are described and defined in line with the 2008 SNA. Where appropriate, illustrative worked examples with step-by-step guidance are provided in the Handbook to give compilers and users a better picture of how to apply and interpret the various concepts. The Handbook is useful for staff working in national statistical offices, national central banks, international organizations and other institutions engaged in collecting, compiling and disseminating national accounts data, specifically on the financial corporations sector and financial account, and for users requiring a better understanding of such data.

The 1993 SNA represents a major advance in national accounting. While updating and clarifying the 1968 SNA, the 1993 SNA provides the basis for improving compilation of national accounts statistics, promoting integration of economic and related statistics, and enhancing analysis of economic developments. The 1993 SNA deals more clearly with relationships between economic flows (such as production, income, savings, accumulation, and financing) and links between these flows and stocks. At the same time the 1993 SNA reflects the many significant developments that have taken place in financial markets and completes the integration of balance sheets into the system. The 1993 SNA also suggests how satellite accounts (e.g. environmental accounts) and alternative classifications (e.g., through social accounting matrices) an be used to augment the central framework of the system.

Understanding Financial Accounts seeks to show how a range of questions on financial developments can be answered with the framework of financial accounts and balance sheets, by providing non-technical explanations illustrated with practical examples.

The principles underlying the recording of changes in inventories are explained in the System of National Accounts, 1993 (1993 SNA), but operational guidelines on their measurement are lacking. This paper elaborates specific statistical techniques and their underlying assumptions for calculating changes in inventories and holding gains when only data on stocks of inventories are available. Several data situations are considered. The authors propose methods for measuring changes in inventories that meet the 1993 SNA principles. The paper also explores possibilities for implementing the proposed improvements and explains the interpretation of data on changes in inventories.

This Manual offers guidelines for the presentation of monetary and financial statistics. It provides a set of tools for identifying, classifying, and recording stocks and flows of financial assets and liabilities, describes the standard, analytically oriented frame works in which the statistics may be presented, and identifies a set of analytically useful aggregates within those frameworks. The concepts and principles set out in the Manual are harmonized with those of the System of National Accounts 1993.

This publication is one of a series of handbooks prepared by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) to help countries, particularly developing countries, implement the 1993 system of national accounts (SNA). It attempts to cover the conceptual and practical aspects of linking business accounts to national accounts through countries' experiences. The handbook aims to provide a general guide to business accounts and the possibility of linking items in them to SNA concepts allowing for local rules and regulations. It cannot provide a set of concrete and detailed international guidelines due to the diversity of business account standards among countries and the extent to which business accounts are made available to statisticians. The main target audiences for this handbook are staff responsible for the compilation of national accounts although it is also a useful reference tool for those who prepare statistics for the preparation of national accounts.

This is an update of OECD 2006 "Understanding National Accounts". It contains new data, new chapters and is adapted to the new systems of national accounts, SNA 2008 and ESA 2010.