software used to manage data in the data base. It is a set of programs that provides for defining, controlling, and accessing the data base. The data base program allows accountants to enter, manipulate, retrieve, display, select,sort, edit, and index data. Advantages of a data base management system include: (1) elimination of data redundancy, (2) improved efficiency in updating, (3) data sharing, (4) easy data access, and (5) reduced program maintenance cost.