Examples

-Salary-Nominal A/c

-Salary Payable-Personal A/c

-Capital-Personal A/c

-Investment-Real A/c

Thumb Rules:

1.All liabilities accounts including capital are Persona A/c.

2.All assets A/c are Real A/c.

3. All expenses and incomes are Nominal A/c 

Personal Account : As the name suggests these are accounts related to persons.
(a) These persons could be natural persons like Suresh’s A/c, Anil’s A/c, Rani’s A/c etc.
(b) The persons could also be artificial persons like companies, bodies corporate or association
of persons or partnerships etc. Accordingly, we could have Videocon Industries A/c, Infosys
Technologies A/c, Charitable Trust A/c, Ali and Sons trading A/c, ABC Bank A/c, etc.
(c) There could be representative personal accounts as well. Although the individual identity of
persons related to these is known, the convention is to reflect them as collective accounts. e.g.
when salary is payable to employees, we know how much is payable to each of them, but
collectively the account is called as ‘Salary Payable A/c’. Similar examples are rent payable,
Insurance prepaid, commission pre-received etc. The students should be careful to have clarity
on this type and the chances of error are more here.
(2) Real Accounts : These are accounts related to assets or properties or possessions. Depending on
their physical existence or otherwise, they are further classified as follows:-
(a) Tangible Real Account – Assets that have physical existence and can be seen, and touched.
e.g. Machinery A/c, Stock A/c, Cash A/c, Vehicle A/c, and the like.
(b) Intangible Real Account – These represent possession of properties that have no physical
existence but can be measured in terms of money and have value attached to them. e.g.
Goodwill A/c, Trade mark A/c, Patents & Copy Rights A/c, Intellectual Property Rights A/c and
the like.
(3) Nominal Account : These accounts are related to expenses or losses and incomes or gains e.g. Salary
and Wages A/c, Rent of Rates A/c, Travelling Expenses A/c, Commission received A/c, Loss by fire
A/c etc.