A mechanism is disclosed for system accounting in an operating system environment that has been partitioned into a global zone and one or more non-global zones. Each zone is associated with one or more processes that execute in association with that zone. Each zone contains a separate system accounting log file. When a process terminates, the process invokes an exit function implemented by a kernel that controls all of the zones. In response, the kernel determines in which zone the process executed. The kernel adds, to the system accounting log file of the zone in which the process executed, a first record that indicates accounting information for the process. The kernel also may add a second record to a global system accounting log file. The first record may contain details specified by a non-global zone's settings, while the second record may contain different details specified by the global zone's settings.