A real account is another name for one of the permanent accounts: an asset, liability or equity account whose balance carries forward from one accounting period to the next. The term is common in older bookkeeping texts and in countries that follow the British tradition of classifying accounts.
Real accounts compared with nominal accounts
Real accounts are the accounts that appear on the balance sheet, such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, Equipment, Notes Payable and Common Stock. They measure what a business owns, owes and is worth on a given date, so their balances are never reset. The closing balance of Cash on December 31 becomes its opening balance on January 1.
Nominal accounts, now usually called temporary accounts, are the revenue, expense, gain, loss and dividend or drawing accounts. They measure activity over a period, so at year-end they are brought to zero by closing entries, and their net result is transferred to retained earnings, which is itself a real account.
In the traditional British scheme, accounts were sorted into three groups: real accounts for property and assets, personal accounts for people and businesses the firm dealt with, such as customers and suppliers, and nominal accounts for income and expenses. US practice simply divides accounts into permanent and temporary, with real accounts and personal accounts both falling on the permanent side. Contra accounts linked to balance sheet items, such as Accumulated Depreciation, are real accounts too, because their balances also carry forward.