Accounting Separation

Keeping the accounting for different businesses or parts of businesses within companies separate so that costs and revenues can be clearly identified with their associated enterprise. Accounting separation is essential to ring fencing, but it may also be undertaken for different activities within the same business organization, for instance accounting separately for maintenance of overhead and underground cables. Financial statements released by most companies have been prepared to comply with the requirements of laws governing company operations. Thus, data so presented will seldom provide the information required for effective utility regulation. The regulator will therefore stipulate what accounting information is required and how it must be presented, even if that means keeping separate accounts for activities that had previously been considered together.