National income accounts are a form of aggregate (which just means: totaling) statistics in macroeconomics. Macroeconomists national income accounts with other data (like population data) to measure per capita income and growth. While it’s not a “scientific” accounting method like business accounting is, it’s a helpful measure developed by economists to measure “how we’re doing now” compared to “how we were doing in the past” in terms of growth and productivity.
You might be thinking, “this is sounding a lot like GDP...hmm…” and you’re not wrong. In fact, GDP is a measure of national income accounts, just a specific type. And it all comes full circle...wow. Think the country should be run like a business?! Well, it kinda is, so no worries. National income accounts are what helps to make sure the economy of a country is running smoothly. Just like a business does accounting, so do countries. To check if the numbers are correct, economists can add up all income, add up all expenditures, and then compare the two, which should be about equal.
Because national income accounts are a huge, aggregate, theoretical thing, national income accounting isn’t done with the same level of precision as business accounting. Rather, they focus on the incoming data to try to make sure it’s accurate and relevant to what the economists need in order to make good economic decisions.
Next time someone rants about how the country should be run like a business, you can tell them national income accounts have been around for awhile—federally employed economists are the business CFOs of the nation.