Accounting Business Structures Activities for High School

Business accounting activities are related to personal accounting skills.

Business accounting activities teach high schoolers how to keep and balance the books for company expenses and revenue. Such activities prepare high school students for the working world so that they understand what goes into business accounting, and why it is important. When determining the appropriate activities, think about which ones will be stimulating for students, while providing them with a lot of information.

Business Startups

Divide students into small groups and give each group the task of starting a business. Business startups rely on strong accounting skills because business owners must know how much capital they have to spend on startup expenses without any revenue coming in yet. In this activity, students learn how to put together debit and credit sheets in ledgers to outline how the startup funding is being allocated throughout the business, and whether the funds are to be used on short- or long-term expenses. As the teams encounter more financial transactions, they must keep track of this by balancing their books.

Business Cash Flows

One of the duties of a business accountant is to keep track of the business cash flow and generate cash flow reports for senior management. Pass out cash flow statements or reports to teams of students and have them decipher the meaning of the report to the class. Or have teams of students to create their own business cash flow reports based on a make believe company that they come up with.

Accounting Balance Sheets

The balance sheet is an accounting staple and is necessary for all business structures. Balance sheets outline the company's equity, liabilities and assets in effort to "balance" the allocation of money. Balance sheet activities teach high schoolers how to identify equity, liabilities and assets. One activity idea is for students to create balance sheets based on fictional companies that you give each team to read about. Another activity idea is for students to research real companies and put together balance sheets based on the company's annual financial report.

Computerized Accounting Activities

The days of maintaining physical ledgers are not quite over, but computerized accounting systems offer an effective and more efficient means for balancing the books. High schoolers can get a feel for business structures and accounting through an activity that requires them to create their own computerized accounting system in an electronic spreadsheet. As new information is updated in the database, the system should adjust the accounting data to reflect current information.