Managerial accounting is the area of accounting devoted to gathering and analyzing information for making management decisions about the operation of a business.

It involves measuring revenues and costs within different parts/departments/activities of a business, estimating costs of producing or providing specific products, services, or processes within the business, comparing projected and actual performance (budgeting), and distilling this data into forms that provide useful information to managers—reports, graphs, and so on.

Managerial accounting is about producing information for use within a business, by its manager(s) as contrasted with financial accounting, which is mostly about producing information for use outside the business—by owners, stockholders, and government (for taxation, etc.).