Unless you are an accountant, you may not know what people are talking about when they mention certain terms. Human nature dictates that we’re either embarrassed or ashamed to ask what certain words mean. In the event you have been hearing terms that you are unfamiliar with, let’s go over a few commonly used terms.
There are some elementary terms, or so the accounting folks say, that many of us just don’t know the definition of. So, let’s start at the beginning. An account has many different meanings. In accounting, the most common use means a record which stores and collects basic information.
An annuity is something you’ll hear a lot about, typically as related to investments and income taxes. An annuity is an expected amount of money that you’ll receive at the same time, every year or other allotted amount of time.
Assets are things which an individual or company own that will convert to money, in the future, if it is not currently cash, itself. These are things that are considered to have value to a person or company and help determine their value.
An asset is something that renders value. You, as an individual or an entire company have things that are of value. These are things that either currently are in a cash state or can be liquidated to a cash state, easily.
Depreciation is a term that is used to describe an item’s loss of value. When something depreciates, it loses how much value it has. This can be said of accounts, cars and other investments.
The term depreciation is used to refer to a belonging or investment that has lost value. Most things depreciate or lose their worth, on a daily basis. One good example of this is an automobile. It depreciates from the moment you drive it off the lot.
When you gain something, you get more value. For instance, if you sell some stocks that you paid a dollar per share for and then you sold those same stocks for twice that, you’d have gained a dollar per share. If those same stocks were sold for fifty cents, you’d have taken a loss on them.
One thing that you may hear people talk about is R and D. R and D stands for research and development. You will hear this discussed many times in a business climate. The reason that it is so heavily discussed is because research and development costs affect a company’s bottom line.
The standard cost is something that has been predetermined ahead of time. The cost of something that is expected to be a certain price is used in accounting for businesses for future planning.
These are just a few of the terms that you may hear when people are discussing business and accounting practices. You’ll hear these terms on the news, read them in the papers and hear business men everywhere dropping them like they were names of superstars. There are many other terms that will be used and if you’re interested, there are many places online to look for their definitions. Simply go to your favorite search engine and run a search on the word.
These are several of the thousands of terms that are used in accounting. Arizona Cpa Exam They know all about the stock market, wise investing and wise spending practices. CPA’s work with tax records, billing, and much more.