what is a permanent account in accounting
A permanent account, also called a real account, is a balance sheet account that is used to record activities that relate to future periods. The reason they are called permanent accounts is because they are never closed at the end of an accounting period. In a sense, they are permanent fixtures on the financial statements. Permanent accounts carry the ending balances of the balance sheet to the beginning of the next year. For instance, the ending inventory balance for year one is the beginning inventory balance for year two.