Where should I enter unpaid wages? Definition of Unpaid Wages Unpaid wages are usually the amounts that hourly-paid employees have earned, but have not yet been paid to the employees. Entering Unpaid Wages Under the...
Where should I enter unpaid wages? Definition of Unpaid Wages Unpaid wages are usually the amounts that hourly-paid employees have earned, but have not yet been paid to the employees. Entering Unpaid Wages Under the...
What is meant by reconciling an account? Definition of Reconciling an Account Reconciling an account is likely to mean proving or documenting that an account balance is correct. Examples of Reconciling an Account When a...
Where do preferred stocks go on the P&L? The amount received from issuing preferred stock is reported on the balance sheet within the stockholders’ equity section. Only the annual preferred dividend is reported on the...
What is the difference between reserve and allowance? More than 60 years ago, accountants in the U.S. used Reserve for Bad Debts as the title of the contra account associated with Accounts Receivable or Loans Receivable....
What is the difference between Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes? Social Security Payroll Tax The Social Security payroll tax is 6.2% and is based on each employee’s earnings (wages, salaries, bonuses,...
What are consolidated financial statements? Definition of Consolidated Financial Statements Consolidated financial statements are financial statements for a group of separate legal entities that are controlled by one...
How do I record an advance to an employee and the deduction? Definition of Advance to an Employee A cash advance to an employee is usually a temporary loan by a company to an employee. In other words, the company is the...
How do cash dividends affect the financial statements? Definition of Cash Dividends Cash dividends are a distribution of a corporation’s earnings to its stockholders or shareholders. For cash dividends to occur, the...
What is the abbreviation for debit and credit? Abbreviation for Debit and Credit The abbreviation for debit is dr. and the abbreviation for credit is cr. Apparently the “dr.” is associated with the term used in Italy...
Why would a balance sheet list current liabilities as negative amounts? Reasons for Negative Current Liabilities on a Balance Sheet Some older accounting software used minus signs or parentheses to indicate credit...
What does double entry mean? Definition of Double Entry In accounting, double entry means that every transaction will involve at least two accounts. Double entry also requires that one account be debited and the other...
Which financial statement shows a corporation's worth? Not one of the financial statements will show a corporation’s worth. The balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and stockholders’ equity...
What is transfer pricing? Definition of Transfer Pricing Transfer pricing involves setting a price that will be used when one responsibility center of a company sells goods or services to another responsibility center of...
Can I capitalize this year's R&D? Generally, R&D costs cannot be capitalized for U.S. financial statements according to the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 2, Accounting for Research and Development...
How do you calculate the payback period? Definition of Payback Period The payback period is the expected number of years it will take for a company to recoup the cash it invested in a project. Examples of Payback Periods...
What is stock? Definition of Stock In business there are at least common meanings for the term stock: Some people use the word stock to mean inventory. In other words, they mean the goods (products, component parts,...
Why would someone buy a bond at a premium? Definition of Bond Premium Bond premium or premium on bonds occurs when the bond’s actual interest payments are greater than the interest payments expected by the market. The...
Why does LIFO usually produce a lower gross profit than FIFO? Definition of LIFO LIFO (which is the acronym for Last In, First Out) is a cost flow assumption in which the most recent costs of inventory items are the...
What is a flexible budget variance? Definition of Flexible Budget and Flexible Budget Variance First, a flexible budget is a budget in which some amounts will increase or decrease when the level of activity changes. A...
What is meant by the full cost of a product? Many (perhaps most) accountants use the term full cost to mean the full manufacturing or production cost of a product. To these accountants this means a product’s cost of...
What is an outstanding deposit? Definition of Outstanding Deposit An outstanding deposit refers to a company’s receipts (cash, checks from customers, etc.) which have been recorded in the company’s general ledger...
What is the difference between product costs and period costs? A manufacturer’s product costs are the direct materials, direct labor, and manufacturing overhead used in making its products. (Manufacturing overhead is...
What is accounting? Definition of Accounting Accounting is the recording of financial transactions along with storing, sorting, retrieving, summarizing, and presenting the results in various reports and analyses....
What is a bank reconciliation? What is a Bank Reconciliation A bank reconciliation is a process performed by a company to ensure that its records (check register, general ledger account, balance sheet, etc.) are correct....
What is the difference between a budget and a standard? Definition of a Budget In business and other organizations, a budget often refers to a department’s or a company’s projected revenues, costs, or expenses....
What are net assets? Definition of Net Assets Net assets is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. Examples of Net Assets In a sole proprietorship the amount of net assets is reported as owner’s equity. In a...
Why does commitment and contingencies appear on the balance sheet without an amount? Definition of Commitments and Contingencies Commitments and contingencies is a balance sheet line with no amount reported. The line...
What is value billing? Value billing is a way of billing a client for services provided. Basically, the amount billed is based on the value of the service (or information) instead of the number of hours spent. The...
What is a BOM? Definition of BOM BOM is the acronym for bill of materials. A BOM is a listing of the quantities of each of the materials used to manufacture a product. Industrial manufacturers are likely to have an...
What is theoretical capacity? Theoretical capacity is the level of a manufacturer’s production that would be attained if all of its equipment and operations performed continuously at their optimum efficiency....
What are mixed costs? Definition of Mixed Costs In accounting, the term mixed costs refers to costs and expenses that consist of two components: A fixed component, the total of which does not change as the volume of...
How do you determine the fixed portion of overhead cost? I suggest that the first step in determining the fixed portion of a mixed cost (a cost that is partially fixed and partially variable) is to graph the data. Label...
What is the difference between actual overhead and applied overhead? Definition of Actual Overhead In the context of actual and applied overhead, actual overhead refers to a manufacturer’s indirect manufacturing costs....
Are depreciation, depletion and amortization similar? In accounting the terms depreciation, depletion and amortization often involve the movement of costs from the balance sheet to the income statement in a systematic...
How does the aging of accounts receivable determine bad debts expense? Definition of Aging of Accounts Receivable The aging of accounts receivable sorts the amounts that a company is owed (from customers who had...
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