 Stocks split to occur because many in finance believe that stocks trade best within a certain range. I don't know what that range is, but let's say it's $25 to $100 as an example. When stock prices get too high, less people can afford to buy them, so they don't trade as well. This is not a fact, by the way. This is just an opinion of many. So here's a headline from April 9th, 2015. This article explains that Starbucks executed a two-for-one stock split, thus doubling the number of shares and halving the market price. Graphically, it would look something like this, with the idea that the stock will now trade faster, rising back to its pre-split value. So accounting for stock splits doesn't require much. Basically, the par value of the stock is decreased, and the number of shares are increased. There is no journal entry involving a stock split, because the financial position of a company hasn't changed, nor has it changed for its stockholders. By the way, not everyone subscribes to the notion that stock splits improve tradeability. This graph shows 30 years of Berkshire Hathaway stock prices. That's the company owned by Warren Buffett. He's never split his stock, which closed on April 9th, 2015 at $215,500 per share. So how many shares would you like to buy?