This page is an index of accounting topics.

B

Balance sheet

Balance sheet

In financial accounting, a balance sheet or statement of financial position is a summary of the financial balances of a sole proprietorship, a business partnership or a company. Assets, liabilities and ownership equity are listed as of a specific date, such as the end of its financial year. A...

- Big Four auditors

Big Four auditors

The Big Four are the four largest international professional services networks in accountancy and professional services, which handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies as well as many private companies, creating an oligopoly in auditing large companies...

- Bond

Bond (finance)

In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...

- Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions. Transactions include sales, purchases, income, receipts and payments by an individual or organization. Bookkeeping is usually performed by a bookkeeper. Bookkeeping should not be confused with accounting. The accounting process is usually...

- Book value

Book value

In accounting, book value or carrying value is the value of an asset according to its balance sheet account balance. For assets, the value is based on the original cost of the asset less any depreciation, amortization or Impairment costs made against the asset. Traditionally, a company's book value...

C

Cash-basis accounting
- Cash-basis versus accrual-basis accounting
- Cash flow statement

Cash flow statement

In financial accounting, a cash flow statement, also known as statement of cash flows or funds flow statement, is a financial statement that shows how changes in balance sheet accounts and income affect cash and cash equivalents, and breaks the analysis down to operating, investing, and financing...

- Certified General Accountant

Certified General Accountant

Certified General Accountant is the designation of professionals who are jointly members of the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada and a provincial or territorial CGA association, or a CGA association overseas...

- Certified Management Accountant

Certified Management Accountant

The title Certified Management Accountant is used by various professional bodies around the world to designate their different professional certifications....

s
- Certified Public Accountant

Certified Public Accountant

Certified Public Accountant is the statutory title of qualified accountants in the United States who have passed the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination and have met additional state education and experience requirements for certification as a CPA...

- Chartered Accountant

Chartered Accountant

Chartered Accountants were the first accountants to form a professional body, initially established in Britain in 1854. The Edinburgh Society of Accountants , the Glasgow Institute of Accountants and Actuaries and the Aberdeen Society of Accountants were each granted a royal charter almost from...

- Chart of accounts

Chart of accounts

__FORCETOC__A chart of accounts is a created list of the accounts used by a business entity to define each class of items for which money or the equivalent is spent or received...

- Common stock

Common stock

Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. It is called "common" to distinguish it from preferred stock. In the event of bankruptcy, common stock investors receive their funds after preferred stock holders, bondholders, creditors, etc...

- Comprehensive income

Comprehensive income

Comprehensive income is a specific term used in companies' financial reporting from the company-whole point of view. Because that use excludes the effects of changing ownership interest, an economic measure of comprehensive income is necessary for financial analysis from the shareholders' point...

- Construction accounting

Construction accounting

Construction accounting is a form of project accounting applied to construction projects. See also production accounting. Construction accounting is a vitally necessary form of accounting, especially when multiple contracts come into play. The construction field uses many terms not used in other...

- Convention of conservatism

Convention of conservatism

In business, investment, and accounting, the principle or convention of conservatism has at least two meanings.In investment and finance, it is a strategy which aims at long-term capital appreciation with low risk...

- Convention of disclosure

Convention of disclosure

The convention of disclosure means that all material facts must be disclosed in the financial statements. For example, in case of sundry debtors not only the total amount of sundry debtors should be disclosed, but also the amount of good and secured debtors, the amount of good, but amount of...

- Cost accounting

Cost accounting

Cost accounting information is designed for managers. Since managers are taking decisions only for their own organization, there is no need for the information to be comparable to similar information from other organizations...

- Cost of capital

Cost of capital

The cost of capital is a term used in the field of financial investment to refer to the cost of a company's funds , or, from an investor's point of view "the shareholder's required return on a portfolio of all the company's existing securities"...

- Cost of goods sold

Cost of goods sold

Cost of goods sold refers to the inventory costs of those goods a business has sold during a particular period. Costs are associated with particular goods using one of several formulas, including specific identification, first-in first-out , or average cost...

- Creative accounting

Creative accounting

Creative accounting and earnings management are euphemisms referring to accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of standard accounting practices, but certainly deviate from the spirit of those rules...

- Credit

Credit (finance)

Credit is the trust which allows one party to provide resources to another party where that second party does not reimburse the first party immediately , but instead arranges either to repay or return those resources at a later date. The resources provided may be financial Credit is the trust...

- Credit note

Credit note

A credit note or credit memorandum is a commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer. The seller usually issues a Credit Memo for the same or lower amount than the invoice, and then repays the money to the buyer or sets it off against a balance due from other transactions.It can also be a...

- Culture Impact on Internal Control Compliance
- Current asset

Current asset

In accounting, a current asset is an asset on the balance sheet which can either be converted to cash or used to pay current liabilities within 12 months...

- Current liability

Current liability

In accounting, current liabilities are often understood as all liabilities of the business that are to be settled in cash within the fiscal year or the operating cycle of a given firm, whichever period is longer...

D

Debit

Debit

Debit and credit are the two aspects of every financial transaction. Their use and implication is the fundamental concept in the double-entry bookkeeping system, in which every debit transaction must have a corresponding credit transaction and vice versa.Debits and credits are a system of notation...

capital reserve
- Debit note
- Debt

Debt

A debt is an obligation owed by one party to a second party, the creditor; usually this refers to assets granted by the creditor to the debtor, but the term can also be used metaphorically to cover moral obligations and other interactions not based on economic value.A debt is created when a...

- Deficit (disambiguation)
- Depreciation

Depreciation

Depreciation refers to two very different but related concepts:# the decrease in value of assets , and# the allocation of the cost of assets to periods in which the assets are used ....

- Diluted earnings per share

Diluted EPS

Diluted Earnings Per Share is a company's earnings per share calculated using fully diluted shares outstanding...

- Dividend

Dividend

Dividends are payments made by a corporation to its shareholder members. It is the portion of corporate profits paid out to stockholders. When a corporation earns a profit or surplus, that money can be put to two uses: it can either be re-invested in the business , or it can be distributed to...

- Double-entry bookkeeping system

Double-entry bookkeeping system

A double-entry bookkeeping system is a set of rules for recording financial information in a financial accounting system in which every transaction or event changes at least two different nominal ledger accounts....

- Dual aspect

E

E-accounting

E-accounting

E-accounting is the application of online and Internet technologies to the business accounting function. Similar to e-mail being an electronic version of traditional mail, e-accounting is "electronic enablement" of lawful accounting and traceable accounting processes which were traditionally...

- EBIT

EBIT

EBIT may refer to:*EBIT, or Earnings before interest and taxes, in finance*EBIT, or Electron beam ion trap, in physics*An ebit, a two-party quantum state with quantum entanglement and the fundamental unit of bitpartite entanglement...

- EBITDA

EBITDA

EBITDA is an acronym for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. It is a non-GAAP metric that is measured exactly as stated. All interest, tax, depreciation and amortization entries in the income statement are reversed out from the bottom-line net income...

- Earnings per share

Earnings per share

Earnings per share is the amount of earnings per each outstanding share of a company's stock.In the United States, the Financial Accounting Standards Board requires companies' income statements to report EPS for each of the major categories of the income statement: continuing operations,...

- Engagement Letter

Engagement Letter

An engagement letter defines the legal relationship between a professional firm and its client...

- Entity concept

Entity concept

In accounting we treat a business or an organization and its owners as two separately identifiable parties. This concept is called business entity concept....

- Environmental accounting
- Expense

Expense

In common usage, an expense or expenditure is an outflow of money to another person or group to pay for an item or service, or for a category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is an expense. Buying food, clothing, furniture or an automobile is often...

- Equity

Ownership equity

In accounting and finance, equity is the residual claim or interest of the most junior class of investors in assets, after all liabilities are paid. If liability exceeds assets, negative equity exists...

- Equivalent Annual Cost

Equivalent Annual Cost

In finance the equivalent annual cost is the cost per year of owning and operating an asset over its entire lifespan.EAC is often used as a decision making tool in capital budgeting when comparing investment projects of unequal lifespans...

F

Financial Accounting Standards Board

Financial Accounting Standards Board

The Financial Accounting Standards Board is a private, not-for-profit organization whose primary purpose is to develop generally accepted accounting principles within the United States in the public's interest...

- Financial accountancy

Financial accountancy

Financial accountancy is the field of accountancy concerned with the preparation of financial statements for decision makers, such as stockholders, suppliers, banks, employees, government agencies, owners, and other stakeholders...

- Financial audit

Financial audit

A financial audit, or more accurately, an audit of financial statements, is the verification of the financial statements of a legal entity, with a view to express an audit opinion...

- Financial reports
- Financial statements

Financial statements

A financial statement is a formal record of the financial activities of a business, person, or other entity. In British English—including United Kingdom company law—a financial statement is often referred to as an account, although the term financial statement is also used, particularly by...

- Fixed assets
- Fixed assets management

Fixed assets management

Fixed assets management is an accounting process that seeks to track fixed assets for the purposes of financial accounting, preventive maintenance, and theft deterrence....

- Forensic accounting

Forensic accounting

Forensic accounting is the specialty practice area of accountancy that describes engagements that result from actual or anticipated disputes or litigation. "Forensic" means "suitable for use in a court of law", and it is to that standard and potential outcome that forensic accountants generally...

- Fraud deterrence

Fraud deterrence

Fraud deterrence has gained public recognition and spotlight since the 2002 inception of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Of the many reforms enacted through Sarbanes-Oxley, one major goal was to regain public confidence in the reliability of financial markets in the wake of corporate scandals such as...

- Free cash flow

Free cash flow

In corporate finance, free cash flow is cash flow available for distribution among all the securities holders of an organization. They include equity holders, debt holders, preferred stock holders, convertible security holders, and so on....

- Fund Accounting

Fund Accounting

Fund accounting is an accounting system emphasizing accountability rather than profitability, used by non-profit organizations and governments...

G

Gain

Gain

In electronics, gain is a measure of the ability of a circuit to increase the power or amplitude of a signal from the input to the output. It is usually defined as the mean ratio of the signal output of a system to the signal input of the same system. It may also be defined on a logarithmic scale,...

- General ledger

General ledger

The main accounting record of a business which uses double-entry bookkeeping. It will usually include accounts for such items as current assets, fixed assets, liabilities, revenue and expense items, gains and losses. Each General Ledger is divided into debits and credits sections. The left hand...

- Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles refer to the standard framework of guidelines for financial accounting used in any given jurisdiction; generally known as accounting standards...

- Going concern

Going concern

A going concern is a business that functions without the threat of liquidation for the foreseeable future, usually regarded as at least within 12 months.-Definition of the 'going concern' concept:...

- Goodwill

Goodwill (accounting)

Goodwill is an accounting concept meaning the value of an entity over and above the value of its assets. The term was originally used in accounting to express the intangible but quantifiable "prudent value" of an ongoing business beyond its assets, resulting perhaps because the reputation the firm...

- Governmental Accounting Standards Board

Governmental Accounting Standards Board

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is currently the source of generally accepted accounting principles used by State and Local governments in the United States of America...

I

Income

Income

Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...

- Income statement

Income statement

Income statement is a company's financial statement that indicates how the revenue Income statement (also referred to as profit and loss statement (P&L), statement of financial performance, earnings statement, operating statement or statement of operations) is a company's financial statement that...

- Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales was established by a Royal Charter in 1880. It has over 130,000 members. Over 15,000 of these members live and work outside the UK...

- Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland is the Scottish professional body of Chartered Accountants . It is a regulator, educator and influencer.ICAS act as a thought leader and voice of the professional business community...

- Institute of Management Accountants

Institute of Management Accountants

Institute of Management Accountants is a professional organization headquartered in Montvale, New Jersey more than 60,000 professionals worldwide...

- Intangible asset

Intangible asset

Intangible assets are defined as identifiable non-monetary assets that cannot be seen, touched or physically measured, which are created through time and/or effort and that are identifiable as a separate asset...

- Interest

Interest

Interest is a fee paid by a borrower of assets to the owner as a form of compensation for the use of the assets. It is most commonly the price paid for the use of borrowed money, or money earned by deposited funds....

- Internal audit

Internal audit

Internal auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an organization's operations. It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk...

- International Accounting Standards Board

International Accounting Standards Board

The International Accounting Standards Board is an independent, privately funded accounting standard-setter based in London, England.The IASB was founded on April 1, 2001 as the successor to the International Accounting Standards Committee...

- International Accounting Standards Committee

International Accounting Standards Committee

International Accounting Standards Committee was founded in June 1973 in London and replaced by the International Accounting Standards Board on April 1, 2001...

- International Accounting Standards
- International Federation of Accountants

International Federation of Accountants

International Federation of Accountants is the global organization for the accountancy profession. IFAC has 164 member and associates in 124 countries and jurisdictions, representing more than 2.5 million accountants employed in public practice, industry and commerce, government, and academe...

- International Financial Reporting Standards

International Financial Reporting Standards

International Financial Reporting Standards are principles-based standards, interpretations and the framework adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board ....

- Inventory

Inventory

Inventory means a list compiled for some formal purpose, such as the details of an estate going to probate, or the contents of a house let furnished. This remains the prime meaning in British English...

- Investment

Investment

Investment has different meanings in finance and economics. Finance investment is putting money into something with the expectation of gain, that upon thorough analysis, has a high degree of security for the principal amount, as well as security of return, within an expected period of time...

- Invoice

Invoice

An invoice or bill is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. An invoice indicates the buyer must pay the seller, according to the payment terms...

s
- Indian Accounting Standards

Indian Accounting Standards

Indian Accounting Standards, abbreviated as Ind AS are a set of accounting standards notified by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs which are converged with International Financial Reporting Standards. These accounting standards are formulated by Accounting Standards Board of Institute of Chartered...

L

Lean accounting

Lean accounting

The purpose of Lean Accounting is to support the lean enterprise as a business strategy. It seeks to move from traditional accounting methods to a system that measures and motivates excellent business practices in the lean enterprise.- Introduction :...

- Ledger

Ledger

A ledger is the principal book or computer file for recording and totaling monetary transactions by account, with debits and credits in separate columns and a beginning balance and ending balance for each account. The ledger is a permanent summary of all amounts entered in supporting journals which...

- Liability
- Long-term asset
- Long-term liabilities

Long-term liabilities

Long-term liabilities are liabilities with a future benefit over one year, such as notes payable that mature longer than one year.In accounting, the long-term liabilities are shown on the right wing of the balance-sheet representing the sources of funds, which are generally bounded in form of...

- Loss

Loss

Loss may refer to:*A negative difference between retail price and cost of production**Loss leader a deliberate commercial loss made in the expectation of recouping it by profitable sales of other lines...

M

Management accounting

Management accounting

Management accounting or managerial accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control...

- Management Assertions

Management assertions

In a financial audit, management assertions or financial statement assertions is the set of information that the preparer of financial statements is providing to another party...

- Mark-to-market accounting
- Matching principle

Matching principle

The matching principle is a culmination of accrual accounting and the revenue recognition principle. They both determine the accounting period, in which revenues and expenses are recognized. According to the principle, expenses are recognized when obligations are incurred The matching principle...

- Materiality

Materiality

Materiality is a concept or convention within auditing and accounting relating to the importance/significance of an amount, transaction, or discrepancy...

- Money measurement concept

Money measurement concept

The money measurement concept underlines the fact that in accounting, every recorded event or transaction is measured in terms of money. Using this principle, a fact or a happening which cannot be expressed in terms of money is not recorded in the accounting books...

- Mortgage loan

Mortgage loan

A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...

N

Negative assurance

Negative assurance

Negative assurance is a method used by the Certified Public Accountant to assure various parties, such as bankers and stockbrokers, that financial data under review by them is correct. Negative assurance tells the data user that nothing has come to the CPA's attention of an adverse nature or...

- Net income

Net income

Net income is the residual income of a firm after adding total revenue and gains and subtracting all expenses and losses for the reporting period. Net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings...

- Normal account
- Notes to the Financial Statements

Notes to the Financial Statements

Notes to financial statements are additional notes and information added to the end of financial statements to supplement the reader with more information. Notes to financial statements help the computation of specific items in the financial statements as well as provide a more comprehensive...

P

Payroll

Payroll

In a company, payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries for an employee, wages, bonuses and deductions. In accounting, payroll refers to the amount paid to employees for services they provided during a certain period of time. Payroll plays a major role in a company for several reasons...

- Petty cash

Petty cash

Petty cash is a small amount of discretionary funds in the form of cash used for expenditures where it is not sensible to make any disbursement by cheque, because of the inconvenience and costs of writing, signing and then cashing the cheque...

- Philosophy of Accounting

Philosophy of accounting

The philosophy of accounting is the conceptual framework for the professional preparation and auditing of financial statements and accounts. The issues which arise include the difficulty of establishing a true and fair value of an enterprise and its assets; the moral basis of disclosure and...

- Preferred stock
- Price earnings ratio
- Positive accounting

Positive accounting

Positive accounting is the branch of academic research in accounting that seeks to explain and predict actual accounting practices. This contrasts with normative accounting, that seeks to derive and prescribe "optimal" accounting standards.- Background :...

- Positive assurance

Positive assurance

Positive assurance is a statement as to what the CPA believes. An example is an opinion that the financial statements are presented fairly in conformity with U.S. GAAP.The opposite is negative assurance, a statement about what the CPA does not know...

- PricewaterhouseCoopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a global professional services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world's largest professional services firm measured by revenues and one of the "Big Four" accountancy firms....

- Profit and loss account
- Pro-forma amount
- Production accounting
- Project accounting

Project accounting

Project accounting is the practice of creating financial reports specifically designed to track the financial progress of projects, which can then be used by managers to aid project management....

S

Security

Security (finance)

A security is generally a fungible, negotiable financial instrument representing financial value. Securities are broadly categorized into:* debt securities ,* equity securities, e.g., common stocks; and,...

- Social accounting

Social accounting

Social accounting is the process of communicating the social and environmental effects of organizations' economic actions to particular interest groups within society and to society at...

- Spreadsheet

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...

- Statement of Retained Earnings

Statement of retained earnings

The Statement of Retained Earnings are basic financial statements.The statements explain the changes in a company's retained earnings over the reporting...

- Statutory accounting principles

Statutory accounting principles

The Statutory Accounting Principles are a set of accounting rules for insurance companies set forth by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. They are used to prepare the statutory financial statements of insurance companies...

- Stock option
- Stock split

Stock split

A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a public company. The price is adjusted such that the before and after market capitalization of the company remains the same and dilution does not occur. Options and warrants are included....

- Stock

Stock

The capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...

- Shareholder

Shareholder

A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....

- Shareholders' equity
- South African Institute of Chartered Accountants

South African Institute of Chartered Accountants

The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants , South Africa’s pre-eminent accountancy body, is widely recognized as one of the world’s accounting institutes....

- Sunk cost

Sunk cost

In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs are retrospective costs that have already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Sunk costs are sometimes contrasted with prospective costs, which are future costs that may be incurred or changed if an action is taken...

U

UK generally accepted accounting principles
- Unified Ledger Accounting

Unified Ledger Accounting

The concept of a unified ledger accounting application is often new to people who have used traditional modular accounting systems, though the idea is very simple. Traditional modular systems have separate General, Purchase and Sales Ledgers which reflect times when accountants wrote information...

- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
- US generally accepted accounting principles
- Work sheet
- Write off
- Trade & Non Trade Investments