Article history: Received April 23, 2012 Received in revised format 26 October 2012 Accepted 28 October 2012 Available online October 29 2012 There are many cases, where we may wish to choose a good accounting system and would like to learn how they work and the advantages and disadvantages of each so we can choose the better one for a business. In this paper, we present an empirical survey to understand whether we can choose accrual or cash accounting system. The proposed study designs a questionnaire among 220 experts in area of accounting affairs. The survey considers four sub hypotheses and one main hypothesis to see whether there are reliable rules and regulations in accrual-based accounting compared with cash accounting or not. Similarly, the survey investigates whether accrual-based accounting is more informative, comprehensive and provides better comparative results compared with cash accounting. The results indicate that accrual-based account performs better in terms of all mentioned criteria and it is a better method for managing accounting affairs compared with cash accounting systems. © 2013 Growing Science Ltd. All rights reserved.