Accounting

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Abridged Accounts

Abridged accounts are reduced-detail UK statutory accounts that an eligible small company may prepare when all members agree.

Accelerated Depreciation

Accelerated depreciation allocates more of an asset's depreciable amount to earlier periods than straight-line depreciation.

Accountants' Report

Written communication identifying an accountant's engagement, responsibilities, work, and opinion, conclusion, or findings.

Accounting Equation

The balance-sheet identity showing that assets equal liabilities plus equity, with transaction examples and analytical limits.

Accounting Standard

An accounting standard is an authoritative financial-reporting requirement governing recognition, measurement, presentation, or disclosure for entities within its scope.

Accounts Payable

Amounts owed to suppliers for goods or services received on credit, and how payables affect working capital, controls, and cash flow.

Payables Turnover

Accounts payable turnover compares credit purchases with average trade payables to measure supplier-payment frequency.

Accounts Receivable

Accounts receivable are amounts customers owe for goods or services already delivered on credit.

Receivables Turnover

Accounts receivable turnover compares net credit sales with average trade receivables to measure collection speed and working-capital efficiency.

Accrual Accounting

Accrual accounting records economic events when they occur, not simply when cash is received or paid.

Accrued Expense

An accrued expense records a cost already incurred but not yet paid or invoiced, matching the expense and related liability to the correct reporting period.

Accrued Interest

Accrued interest is interest earned or incurred since the last payment date but not yet paid, affecting loan accounting and bond settlement prices.

Accrued Taxes

Taxes attributable to activity already recorded but not yet paid, including current income tax, payroll-related tax, and other tax payables.

Acquisition Method

Business-combination accounting method that identifies the acquirer, measures acquired net assets, and recognizes goodwill or a bargain-purchase gain.

Actual Output

Actual output is the usable production completed by a defined operation during a period, measured consistently against budget or capacity.

Aging of Accounts Receivable

Aging of accounts receivable groups customer balances by invoice age or days past due to support collections, credit-loss estimates, and collateral monitoring.

Amortization

Allocation of intangible asset cost or loan principal over time, depending on the accounting or finance context.

Amortized Cost

Financial-instrument measurement based on initial amount, effective interest, principal cash flows, fees, and applicable credit-loss adjustments.

Analytical Procedures

Analytical procedures compare recorded financial amounts with expectations built from plausible financial and nonfinancial relationships.

Asset

An asset is an economic resource controlled by an entity that may produce cash, reduce costs, settle obligations, or support operations.

Asset Revaluation

Permitted update of an eligible asset class from cost-based carrying amount to fair value, with specific recognition and consistency requirements.

Asset Valuation

Asset valuation estimates what an asset is worth under cost, market, income, or fair-value measurement approaches.

Audit Committee

An audit committee oversees financial reporting, external-auditor independence, internal control, complaints, and related governance matters.

Average Revenue (AR)

Average revenue is revenue per unit sold, calculated by dividing total revenue by quantity sold.

Bad Debt

A receivable or credit exposure judged uncollectible, including its relationship to expected-loss allowances, write-offs, and charge-offs.

Balance Sheet Items

Learn how assets, liabilities, and equity form the balance sheet, then explore classification, measurement, cutoff, capital, and disclosure terms.

Bonus Depreciation

Bonus depreciation is a U.S. federal additional first-year deduction for eligible depreciable property placed in service by a business.

Branch Accounting

Internal accounting for a business location, including branch ledgers, interbranch balances, performance reporting, and consolidation controls.

Break-Even Analysis

Break-even analysis estimates the sales volume or revenue at which contribution margin covers fixed costs and operating profit is zero.

Capacity Utilization Rate

Capacity utilization rate compares actual output with a defined sustainable, effective, or design capacity for the same period.

Capital Asset

Capital asset can mean long-lived productive property in business analysis or a specific U.S. tax class whose sale may create capital gain or loss.

Capital Contribution

A capital contribution is cash or other property an owner transfers to an entity as equity rather than as revenue or a loan.

Capitalization

Capitalization can mean recording a cost as an asset, measuring a company's market value, or describing its mix of debt and equity.

Carrying Amount

Amount recognized for an asset or liability after applying its measurement basis, accumulated allocations, repayments, allowances, and other adjustments.

Cash Accounting

Cash accounting records income and expenses mainly when money is received or paid, rather than when the underlying economic activity occurs.

Cash and Cash Equivalents

Cash and cash equivalents combine available cash with short-term, highly liquid investments convertible to known cash amounts with insignificant value risk.

Cash-Generating Unit

A cash-generating unit is the smallest asset group producing largely independent cash inflows for impairment testing under IAS 36.

Churn Rate

Churn rate measures the percentage of customers, subscribers, or revenue units lost over a period.

Compliance

Compliance is the process of identifying applicable obligations, assigning ownership, operating controls, detecting breaches, and documenting remediation.

Comprehensive Income

Comprehensive income combines profit or loss with other comprehensive income and requires analysis of tax, recycling, attribution, and accumulated OCI.

Conservatism Principle

Cautious accounting judgment under uncertainty without deliberately understating assets or overstating liabilities.

Contingent Liability

A contingent liability is an uncertain obligation that is generally disclosed rather than recognized when IAS 37 provision criteria are not met.

Contra Account

A contra account carries the opposite normal balance of a related account so statements can preserve gross amounts while presenting a net balance.

Contribution Margin

Contribution margin is revenue minus variable costs and shows how much sales contribute to fixed costs and profit.

Core Statements

Core reports and disclosures for understanding financial position, performance, cash flows, equity changes, and the notes behind reported amounts.

Cost Basis

Cost basis is the starting tax value of an investment or property, adjusted for events that determine gain, loss, depreciation, or other tax results.

Cost Driver

A cost driver is a measurable factor used to explain resource consumption or assign an activity's cost to products, services, or customers.

Cost Management

Cost management is the process of planning, measuring, explaining, and controlling costs while protecting the activities that create value.

Cost of Goods Sold

Cost of goods sold is the carrying amount of inventory recognized as expense when the related goods are sold.

DSO

DSO estimates the average number of days needed to collect credit sales, with period matching, proxy limitations, and aging checks.

Deferred Revenue

Deferred revenue is a liability for customer payments received before the promised goods or services are delivered.

Deferred Tax

Future income-tax effects of temporary differences between financial-statement carrying amounts and tax bases.

Deferred Tax Asset

A potential future income-tax benefit from deductible temporary differences, losses, or credits, subject to realizability requirements.

Deferred Tax Liability

A recognized future income-tax consequence of taxable temporary differences between financial-statement carrying amounts and tax bases.

Depletion

Depletion allocates the capitalized cost of an extractive natural resource as recoverable units are produced or sold.

Depreciation

Depreciation allocates a tangible asset's depreciable amount across the periods in which the business expects to use it.

Depreciation and Amortization

Depreciation and amortization systematically allocate tangible and finite-lived intangible asset costs over periods of use.

Depreciation Recapture

Tax rule that can reclassify gain on depreciated property as ordinary income when the asset is sold.

Diminishing-Balance Method

The diminishing-balance method, also known as the reducing-balance method, is a technique used to calculate depreciation, which gradually reduces the value of an asset over time.

Direct Financing Lease

A direct financing lease is an ASC 842 lessor classification that recognizes a net investment and finance income without an upfront sales-type profit.

Donated Capital

Donated Capital is an equity or reserve account used to explain retained profits, capital buffers, or shareholder claims.

Earnings Management

Earnings management uses accounting judgments or operating decisions to influence reported results; learn its methods, boundaries, costs, and warning signs.

Economic Order Quantity

Economic order quantity estimates the replenishment size that minimizes modeled ordering and cycle-stock holding costs.

Equity Method

Equity method accounting adjusts an investment for the investor's share of investee results, distributions, basis differences, and other required changes.

Exchange Gain

An exchange gain arises when currency movements increase a monetary asset's functional-currency value or reduce a monetary liability. See formulas, entries, and examples.

Expense

An expense is a decrease in economic resources recognized when a business consumes benefits or incurs obligations.

Expense Recognition Principle

How accrual accounting recognizes costs when assets are consumed or liabilities arise rather than simply when cash is paid.

Fair Value

Fair value is a market-based exit-price measurement for an asset or liability at a specified measurement date.

FASB

The U.S. standard setter whose Codification governs financial reporting by nongovernmental entities that follow U.S. GAAP.

Fiduciary Fund

A fiduciary fund reports resources a state or local government controls for beneficiaries outside the government's own programs.

FIFO

Learn how first in, first out assigns older inventory costs to cost of goods sold, with a worked example and comparison with LIFO and weighted average.

Finance Lease

Finance Lease is an accounting liability concept used to recognize obligations, claims, and expected future sacrifices.

Financial Analysis

Financial analysis evaluates statements, cash flows, ratios, trends, and business drivers to support finance decisions.

Financial Statement

Formal accounting report presenting an entity's financial position, performance, cash flows, or changes in equity.

Financial Statement Audit

Independent engagement providing reasonable assurance and an opinion on whether financial statements are materially fairly presented.

Financial Statements

Financial statement terms for assets, liabilities, earnings, cash flow, disclosures, filings, ratios, consolidation, and reporting quality.

Fiscal Quarter

Interim reporting segment within a fiscal year, with quarter length, year-to-date presentation, and seasonality affecting comparison.

Fiscal Year

Annual accounting and reporting cycle that may follow a calendar year, a non-calendar year, or a 52/53-week structure.

Fiscal Year-End

Closing date of an annual accounting cycle, when cutoff, close procedures, estimates, and subsequent-event review shape the statements.

Fixed Asset

Tangible long-lived operating asset whose cost, depreciation, impairment, and disposal affect capital investment and reported performance.

Fixed Costs vs. Variable Costs

Fixed and variable costs describe how total cost responds to an activity driver within a stated period and relevant range.

Financial Statement Footnotes

Financial statement footnotes explain accounting policies, estimates, debt, commitments, risks, and details behind amounts reported in the primary statements.

Pro Forma Statements

Special reporting terms for pro forma statements, adjusted statements, personal statements, statements of affairs, and summary statements.

Fund Balance

Fund balance is the residual current financial resources reported in a governmental fund after liabilities and deferred inflows are considered.

Fund Reporting

Government fund-accounting terms for fund types, measurement bases, fiduciary resources, and fund-balance classifications.

GAAP

Generally accepted accounting principles for a defined jurisdiction, entity type, and reporting period, including U.S. GAAP frameworks.

GAAP vs. IFRS

GAAP vs. IFRS compares the U.S. and international financial-reporting frameworks and their analytical effects.

General Fund

The general fund is a government's primary operating fund for resources and activities not required to be reported in another fund.

Going Concern

Financial-reporting basis used when an entity is expected to continue operating and meet obligations through the assessment period.

Goodwill

Acquisition-accounting residual recognized after measuring consideration, non-controlling interests, and identifiable net assets.

Goodwill Impairment

Write-down recognized when goodwill assigned to a cash-generating unit or reporting unit is no longer supported by the unit's measured value.

Governmental Fund

A governmental fund reports short-term financial resources used for tax-supported state and local government services and fiscal accountability.

Gross Profit Method

The gross profit method estimates inventory and cost of goods sold from goods available, net sales, and an expected gross margin.

Gross vs. Net Presentation

Gross presentation reports related amounts separately; net presentation combines them only when the applicable accounting requirements permit or require it.

Half-Year Convention

The MACRS half-year convention treats eligible property as placed in service or disposed of at the midpoint of the tax year.

Hedge Accounting

Optional accounting that aligns qualifying hedging instruments with designated risk exposures in profit, OCI, or asset cost.

Historical Cost

Transaction-derived measurement basis updated for consumption, repayments, interest, impairment, and other changes required by the applicable accounting standard.

IASB

The independent IFRS Foundation board that develops and publishes IFRS Accounting Standards for jurisdictions that adopt or permit them.

IFRS

International accounting standards governing financial statement recognition, measurement, presentation, and disclosure where jurisdictions adopt or permit them.

IFRS 16

The IFRS lease accounting standard governing lease identification, right-of-use assets, lease liabilities, expenses, and disclosures.

Impairment

Accounting write-down required when an asset or asset group's carrying amount is not recoverable under the applicable measurement model.

Imprest System

The Imprest System is a method used to manage petty cash by replenishing the fund to a fixed amount, ensuring better control over minor day-to-day expenses.

Income Statement

An income statement shows revenue, expenses, and profit or loss over a period and helps readers evaluate margins, growth, and earnings quality.

Income Tax Payable

Income tax payable is unpaid current income tax owed to tax authorities. Learn its calculation, journal entries, roll-forward, presentation, and deferred-tax differences.

Income and Profit

Learn how revenue becomes gross profit, operating income, net income, and earnings per share, and how classification affects financial-statement analysis.

Intangible Asset

Identifiable non-monetary asset without physical substance, with recognition, useful-life, amortization, and impairment judgments affecting reported value.

Interest Expense

Financing cost recognized on debt, lease liabilities, and similar obligations, including effective-interest and capitalization effects.

Inventory Accounting

Learn how inventory accounting connects purchases and production to ending inventory, cost of goods sold, write-downs, controls, and financial analysis.

Investment Center

An investment center is a business unit whose manager is accountable for profit and the capital employed, commonly assessed with ROI and residual income.

Lease Accounting

Lease accounting identifies lease contracts and measures lessee right-of-use assets, lease liabilities, expenses, and lessor lease investments.

Lease Liability

A lease liability is the lessee's discounted obligation for lease payments included under the applicable lease accounting standard.

Lease Term

Enforceable lease period plus extension or termination periods included when exercise decisions are reasonably certain.

Liability

A liability is a present obligation arising from past events that may require an entity to transfer cash, goods, services, or another economic resource.

LIFO

Learn how last in, first out assigns recent inventory costs to cost of goods sold, including layers, LIFO liquidation, reserve analysis, and IFRS differences.

Liquid Asset

Asset that can become usable cash quickly with limited transaction cost and price concession, subject to market depth, restrictions, and timing.

Long-Term Debt

Long-Term Debt is a liability concept used to classify borrowing obligations, financing claims, and repayment risk.

Lower of Cost and NRV Rule

Learn how lower of cost and net realizable value limits inventory carrying amounts, with an NRV calculation, write-down example, and GAAP-versus-IFRS differences.

Lower of Cost or Market

Learn the U.S. GAAP lower-of-cost-or-market test for LIFO and retail-method inventory, including replacement cost, the NRV ceiling, and the profit-margin floor.

MACRS

MACRS is the U.S. federal tax system that assigns eligible property a recovery period, depreciation method, and timing convention.

Margin of Safety

Margin of safety measures how far actual or expected sales can fall before reaching the break-even point.

Markup

Markup measures the amount added above a defined cost base to set or analyze a selling price; it differs from gross margin because it divides by cost.

Master Budget

Integrated operating and financial plan linking sales, production, costs, cash, financing, and budgeted financial statements.

Material Misstatement

A material misstatement is an incorrect or omitted amount, classification, presentation, or disclosure that could affect financial-statement users.

Materiality

Materiality is the entity-specific judgment about whether omitted, misstated, or obscured information could influence financial-statement users.

Mental Accounting

Mental Accounting is an accounting method used to measure transactions, allocate costs, and support comparable reporting.

Mid-Quarter Convention

The Mid-Quarter Convention is a tax rule applied in accounting to manage the depreciation of assets.

Misappropriation

Misappropriation is unauthorized use of entrusted assets or, in U.S. insider-trading law, confidential information used in breach of a duty. Learn the distinctions and controls.

Monetary Assets

Cash and rights to receive fixed or determinable currency amounts, a classification central to foreign-currency translation and purchasing-power analysis.

Net Investment in a Lease

Net Investment in a Lease is an accounting liability concept used to recognize obligations, claims, and expected future sacrifices.

Net Proceeds

Gross transaction consideration less specified fees and costs, distinguished from gain, profit, debt repayment, and cash retained.

Net Realizable Value

Entity-specific inventory recovery estimate equal to expected ordinary-course selling price less completion and sale costs.

Net Sales

Net sales are sales revenue after returns, allowances, discounts, rebates, and other applicable contra-revenue deductions.

Non-Cash Item

A non-cash item affects profit, financial position, or capital structure without creating a cash flow in the same reporting period.

Non-Current Assets

Long-term balance-sheet resources outside current-asset classification, including operating assets, intangibles, investments, and deferred amounts.

Non-Current Liabilities

Non-current liabilities are obligations not classified as current, including long-term debt, lease liabilities, deferred taxes, and other longer-dated claims.

Operating Expenditure (OpEx)

Operating expenditure is spending consumed in ordinary operations rather than recorded as inventory or another long-lived asset.

Overhead

Overhead includes indirect operating costs such as rent, utilities, supervision, support labor, and facility expenses.

Pass-Through Taxation

A tax feature allowing business income to be passed directly to the owners and taxed at their individual rates.

Prepayment

A prepayment is an advance payment recognized as an asset until the related goods, services, or other economic benefits are received.

Price-Level-Adjusted Statements

Inflation-restated statements explained through IAS 29 scope, monetary and non-monetary items, index adjustments, and net monetary gains or losses.

Profit

Income exceeding expenses for a reporting period, interpreted through gross, operating, pretax, and net profit subtotals.

Profit Margin

Profit expressed as a percentage of revenue, with gross, operating, pretax, and net margin calculations and comparison limits.

Profit Sharing

Profit sharing distributes part of company profits to employees, partners, or participants under an agreed formula.

Proportional Consolidation

Line-by-line method that reports an investor's share of a joint arrangement's assets, liabilities, revenue, and expenses.

Proprietary Fund

A proprietary fund reports a government's business-type or internal service activities using accrual accounting and an economic resources focus.

Provision

A provision is a recognized liability with uncertain timing or amount, measured from the best estimate of the resources needed to settle the obligation.

Filings and Disclosures

Public-reporting terms for annual reports, SEC filings, disclosure rules, reporting standards, proxy material, and filing periods.

Public Interest Entity (PIE)

A public interest entity is an entity placed within enhanced audit or ethics requirements because its reporting has broader public significance under the applicable rules.

Qualitative Characteristics

Qualitative characteristics explain what makes financial information useful: relevance, faithful representation, comparability, verifiability, timeliness, and understandability.

Ratios and Analysis

Navigate financial ratios, common-size statements, trends, margins, returns, liquidity, leverage, coverage, and efficiency analysis.

Recognition

Recognition is the accounting process of including an asset, liability, equity, income, or expense in the primary financial statements.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation compares independent records or balances, explains every difference, and documents the corrections or timing items needed to reach agreement.

Reporting Date

Financial-statement measurement date that anchors balances, transaction cutoff, classifications, and subsequent-event analysis.

Reporting Period

Time span covered by financial performance and cash-flow reporting, with period length, cutoff, and comparability central to analysis.

Reporting Periods

Calendar and period terms for fiscal years, fiscal quarters, reporting dates, reporting periods, and year-end reporting.

Reserve

A reserve is an accounting label for a designated equity amount, valuation allowance, liability estimate, or restricted resource, depending on context.

Restatement

A correction to previously issued financial statements after an error is found to require revision under the applicable reporting and filing requirements.

Revaluation Reserve

Equity balance, also called revaluation surplus, that accumulates qualifying asset revaluation increases recognized through other comprehensive income.

Revenue Growth

Revenue growth refers to the increase in a company's sales over a specific period, indicating its ability to expand its market and improve its financial performance.

Revenue Management

Revenue management uses demand forecasts, pricing rules, and capacity controls to improve revenue from limited or time-sensitive inventory.

Revenue Recognition

Revenue recognition determines when and how much revenue from customer contracts is reported.

Right-of-Use Asset

A right-of-use asset represents a lessee's recognized right to use an underlying leased asset during the lease term.

Run Rate

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

Sales Mix Variance

Sales mix variance isolates the contribution or profit effect of selling products in proportions different from the budgeted mix.

Sales-Type Lease Accounting

Sales-type lease accounting lets a lessor recognize selling profit and a lease receivable when control effectively transfers.

Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002

U.S. law governing public-company audit oversight, executive certifications, audit committees, records, and internal-control reporting.

Short-Term Debt

Short-term debt is interest-bearing borrowing classified as current, including near-term loans, commercial paper, and current maturities of long-term debt.

Significant Influence

Significant influence is the power to participate in an investee's financial and operating policy decisions without controlling them.

Statements & Reconciliation

Bank records used to review account activity, reconcile cash, and confirm balances or banking relationships.

Straight-Line Depreciation

Straight-Line Depreciation is a widely-used method of allocating the cost of a tangible fixed asset over its useful life.

Subscription Service

A subscription service provides continuing access or recurring delivery in exchange for periodic customer payments.

Surplus

In accounting, surplus is a jurisdiction-specific equity label for accumulated earnings, contributed capital, or another excess amount defined by the account.

Synthetic Lease

Synthetic Lease is an accounting liability concept used to recognize obligations, claims, and expected future sacrifices.

Target Costing

Market-led cost management method that subtracts required profit from a competitive selling price to establish allowable product cost.

Transfer Pricing

Transfer pricing sets the terms of controlled transactions between related parties using arm's-length analysis, functional evidence, and reliable financial data.

Useful Life of an Asset

Useful life is the period over which an asset is expected to contribute to revenue or operations.

Variance Analysis

Variance analysis compares actual results with a budget or standard and separates price, quantity, rate, efficiency, volume, and mix effects.

Work in Progress

Learn how work-in-progress inventory accumulates materials, labor, and production overhead before completed goods move to finished inventory.