A contract to provide coverage or protection in exchange for a payment or “premium.” Examples of insurance protection include liability, property, business interruption, life, disability, etc. The company...
A contract to provide coverage or protection in exchange for a payment or “premium.” Examples of insurance protection include liability, property, business interruption, life, disability, etc. The company...
A negative balance in the bank’s records for the company’s checking account.
See direct labor efficiency variance and variable manufacturing overhead efficiency variance.
See perpetual system of inventory.
See carrying amount.
Raw materials that are a traceable component of a manufactured product. For example, the direct material of a baseball bat is the wood. Flour, sugar, and vegetable oil are direct materials of a company that manufactures...
Also referred to as a sunk cost. A past cost is not relevant to a decision.
to a liability account a debit to an expense account if the employees are not involved in the manufacturing of products. (The FUTA tax for employees in the manufacturing departments is recorded in an account associated...
The change in total costs in response to the change in some activity. For example, some of the costs of owning and operating a vehicle will increase in total with an increase in miles driven. These are referred to as...
Usually means every two weeks. For example, if an employee is paid every other Thursday, the employee is paid biweekly. The person paid biweekly will receive 26 paychecks per year. (People paid two times per month...
A potential liability dependent upon some future event occurring or not occurring. For example, a company is named as a defendant in a $1 million lawsuit. Does that mean the company automatically has a liability of $1...
An individual owner of a business that is not incorporated.
See stockholder.
See International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).
The amounts withheld for employees’ checks for Social Security tax, Medicare tax, federal income tax, state income tax, and voluntary deductions such as United Way, union dues, 401(k) contributions,...
A classification on a single-step income statement for both operating and nonoperating expenses and losses that pertain to the time interval shown in the heading of the income statement.
A current liability account that reports the amounts of cash dividends that have been declared by the board of directors but not yet distributed to the stockholders.
One of the cost flow assumptions associated with the periodic inventory system. The first (oldest) costs are removed from inventory first and are charged to the income statement as cost of goods sold. The recent costs...
A stock split, such as a 2-for-1, means that every stockholder will have twice as many shares as was held previously. Accordingly, the market price per share after the split should be one-half of the market price...
A mathematical tool to optimize profits (contribution margin) given a limited amount of inputs and other constraints.
An income statement account that reports the amount of service revenues earned during the time interval indicated in the heading of the income statement. (Under the accrual basis of accounting, fees earned are reported...
Is the direct method still used in the statement of cash flows? The direct method is one of two methods allowed for preparing the statement of cash flows (or cash flow statement). The direct method is recommended by the...
See full disclosure principle.
Relevant or meaningful data.
One hundredth (1/100) of a percentage point. In other words, one percentage point is equal to 100 basis points. The difference between an interest rate of 6.5% and 6.75% is 25 basis points.
The amount in a bank account according to the bank’s records.
A past, historical cost. They are called sunk because a past cost cannot be changed and decisions involve only the present and the future.
A difference between an actual cost and a budgeted or standard cost, and the actual cost is the lesser amount. In the case of revenues, a favorable variance occurs when the actual revenues are greater than the budgeted...
A series of equal amounts occurring at the end of each equal time interval. Also known as an ordinary annuity. An example would be the monthly payments on a loan. Another example is the semiannual interest on a bond.
as a reduction in the company’s Cash account and an increase in an asset account such as Advance to Employees or Other Receivables: Advances. (If the amount is expected to be repaid within one year, this account will...
Cost that is considered to be part of the cost of merchandise. For a retailer, the inventoriable cost is the cost from the supplier plus all costs necessary to get the item into inventory and ready for sale, e.g....
A company’s loss before nonoperating or other items. Other or nonoperating items include interest income, interest expense, and gains and losses on sale of assets used in the business, loss on lawsuit, etc.
Used in conjunction with cost or expense behavior. Mixed expenses consist of a constant or fixed portion and a variable portion. For example, sales salaries would be a mixed expense if each sales person’s...
What is the difference between revenue, income, and gain? Definition of Revenue Revenue is the amount earned from a company’s main operating activities, such as a retailer selling merchandise or a law firm providing...
See chief executive officer.
The result of subtracting total liabilities from total assets. It is also the term used by not-for-profit organizations instead of owner’s equity or stockholders’ equity. To learn more see our Explanation of...
A listing of the materials included in a product. A bill of material could be thought of as a bakery’s recipe for producing one of its products.
The abbreviation for the accounting and bookkeeping term debit.
Costs that have been divided up and assigned to periods, departments, products, etc. In depreciation it is the asset’s cost that is assigned to each of the years that the asset is in use. In cost accounting it is...
A phrase used in depreciation and amortization to indicate that the expense is being allocated on a logical basis (because a cause and effect relationship does not exist).
Featured Review
"My current position is as Accounting Manager for a construction company. I became a PRO user years ago while struggling through some of my higher-level accounting classes in college, due to some faulty teaching in lower-level courses. I like that the materials on AccountingCoach range from base knowledge all the way up to detailed explanations on fairly complicated subjects. From the start, the subject matter is explained in great detail, and the interactive ways to apply the knowledge are excellent to drill it in. I have benefited from my PRO membership because I have turned the skills I learned between this and school into a career that I love." - Joseph S.
Join PRO or PRO Plus and Get Lifetime Access to Our Premium Materials
Read all 2,645 reviewsWe now offer 10 Certificates of Achievement for Introductory Accounting and Bookkeeping: