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Analysis, Performance Measurement, and Run Rates

Accounting terms for financial analysis, horizontal analysis, performance measurement, profitability analysis, and run rates.

Analysis, Performance Measurement, and Run Rates covers financial analysis, horizontal analysis, performance measurement, profitability analysis, and run rates.

Use these pages when controls or reporting classifications change confidence in expenses, revenue, profit, margins, run rates, or performance interpretation. It sits inside Profit, Loss, and Performance Reporting, so readers can move up when the broader accounting context matters.

Use the table below to choose the narrower accounting branch before applying a term to a statement line, model input, audit trail, tax schedule, covenant test, or management report.

What This Branch Covers

AreaUse it for
Financial AnalysisFinancial analysis interprets statements, ratios, cash flows, forecasts, and business drivers to assess performance and value.
Horizontal AnalysisHorizontal analysis compares financial statement amounts across periods to identify growth, decline, and trend patterns.
Performance MeasurementUse of metrics and indicators to evaluate financial, operational, or managerial performance against objectives.
Profitability AnalysisProfitability analysis evaluates margins, returns, cost structure, pricing, and earnings quality across products, segments, or periods.
Run RateRun rate annualizes recent performance to estimate ongoing revenue, expense, earnings, or cash-flow pace.

What to Check

  • Control account, reconciliation, approval trail, expense account, revenue schedule, variance report, and reporting package.
  • Whether the issue affects cut-off, classification, completeness, occurrence, authorization, or reporting quality.
  • Effect on margins, operating expenses, profit, cash flow, forecast quality, fraud risk, and covenant or KPI reporting.
  • Audit evidence, internal-control finding, management adjustment, restatement, or policy disclosure when relevant.
  • Comparability across periods, segments, systems, and management reporting definitions.

Common Mistakes

  • Treating internal reports as audited external statements.
  • Ignoring control weaknesses, restatements, cut-off issues, and reclassifications.
  • Mixing operating, administrative, direct, indirect, fixed, and overhead costs.
  • Using run-rate or adjusted metrics without checking normalization choices.

Reporting and controls content is educational and does not provide accounting, audit, tax, legal, compliance, management, investment, or valuation advice.

In this section

Choose a subsection first. Deeper term pages live inside each subsection, which keeps large topic hubs readable.

Financial Analysis

Financial analysis interprets statements, ratios, cash flows, forecasts, and business drivers to assess performance and value.

Horizontal Analysis

Horizontal analysis compares financial statement amounts across periods to identify growth, decline, and trend patterns.

Performance Measurement

Use of metrics and indicators to evaluate financial, operational, or managerial performance against objectives.

Profitability Analysis

Profitability analysis evaluates margins, returns, cost structure, pricing, and earnings quality across products, segments, or periods.

Run Rate

Run rate annualizes recent performance to estimate ongoing revenue, expense, earnings, or cash-flow pace.

Revised on Sunday, June 21, 2026