Operational Accounting vs Tax Accounting is the 📝BrightZen Systems principle that the accounting kept to run a business takes priority over the accounting kept to file its taxes, summed up in a saying:
Operational Accounting trumps Tax Accounting all the time
Operational accounting produces the books management uses to run the company and is done weekly; tax accounting prepares the books for filing and is done annually. Under the principle, entries are recorded during the year for operational reasons, and tax accounting catches up any balance sheet entries made in the past for those reasons into the current year at filing time.
The principle is aimed at 📝Rapidly growing companies, many of which operate at a loss and owe little or no income tax. For these companies, organizing the books around the annual return or an eventual audit delays the operating information management needs every week.
Thinking about taxes and audits for rapidly growing companies is putting the cart before the horse. Most of these companies aren't taxpayers anyway.