National Accounts: A Practical Introduction provides an introduction to some basic concepts and structures of the System of National Accounts (SNA) to economists and policy makers who are not familiar with national accounts, as well as other newcomers to the field of national accounting. The text may serve as a guide to reading the SNA itself. In that sense, the text is written in as simple a style as possible, and therefore the detailed elaboration of concepts in both theory and practice is avoided. Simple exercises are included, whenever possible, to make concepts and structures clearer to readers. The handbook also provides an example of the complete system in Excel so that readers can trace the linkages in the system by looking at the formulas there. A compilation spreadsheet that can be used for compiling national accounts is also developed as part of the development of the handbook. It has been tested and used in many developing countries. Those supplements are posted on the web page of the United Nations Statistics Division as part of the series Handbook of National Accounting.