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Every term, defined once.
One sentence per term, taken from the Foundation page that owns it. No other page on this site defines these terms; they link here or to the owning page instead.
- Account numbering system
- An account numbering system is the set of number ranges a chart of accounts uses so that an account's number tells you its type at a glance: a number that starts with 1 is an asset, 2 a liability, 3 equity, 4 revenue, and 5 or above an expense.
- Account types
- Account types are the five categories every account belongs to: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses.
- Accrual accounting
- Accrual accounting is the method that records revenue in the period it is earned and expenses in the period they are incurred, whether or not cash has moved yet.
- Accrued liability
- An accrued liability is an obligation a business has already incurred but has not yet paid or been billed for, so the amount is recorded from a calculation or an estimate rather than from an invoice.
- Cost of goods sold
- Cost of goods sold is the direct cost of the products or services a business actually sold in a period, as distinct from operating expense, which is the cost of running the business whether or not anything sold.
- Debits and credits
- Debits and credits are the two sides of every entry in double-entry bookkeeping: a debit is an amount recorded on the left side of an account, a credit is an amount recorded on the right side, and every transaction posts equal amounts to each side.
- Financial statement
- A financial statement is a report built entirely from account balances: the income statement from revenue and expense accounts, the balance sheet from asset, liability, and equity accounts, and the statement of cash flows from the change in those balance sheet accounts over the period.
- Fixed asset
- A fixed asset is something a business buys to use for more than a year rather than to sell, such as a vehicle, a machine, a computer, or a building.
- GAAP
- GAAP is the common set of accounting standards that businesses in the United States follow when they prepare financial statements for people outside the company.
- Sub-account
- A sub-account is an account nested under a parent account so that detail can be tracked without losing the parent's total.
F-02Account numbering ->
F-01The five account types ->
F-05Accrual vs. cash basis ->
F-07Liabilities and accruals ->
F-04Cost of goods sold vs. operating expense ->
F-03Debits and credits ->
F-09How accounts become statements ->
F-06Fixed assets and depreciation ->
F-10GAAP basics for a small business chart ->
F-08Parent and sub-accounts ->