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Word	Description
Account Type	In QuickBooks, the account type defines where the account will appear in the chart of accounts and what role it will play in recording transactions. QuickBooks 2009 supports 5 account types (Income, Expense, Cost of Goods Sold, Other Income, and Other Expense) that appear on the Profit & Loss Statement and 11 account types (Fixed Asset, Bank, Loan, Credit Card, Equity, Accounts Receivable, Other Current Asset, Other Asset, Accounts Payable, Other Current Liability, and Long Term Liability) that appear on the Balance Sheet. Only 1 account type per account is allowed.
Accounts Payable	Accounts Payable generally refers to the total amount of bills that a company owes to its vendors and suppliers. It's often referred to by the acronyms AP or A/P. QuickBooks automatically creates 1 AP account the first time you enter a bill if it doesn't already exist. If you need multiple AP accounts, you can create them manually and choose the appropriate AP account when you enter or pay vendor bills.
Accounts Receivable	Accounts Receivable generally refers to the total amount of invoices that a company's customers owe to the firm. It's often referred to by the acronym AR or A/R. QuickBooks automatically creates 1 AR account the first time you create a customer invoice if it doesn't already exist. If you need multiple AR accounts, you can create them manually and choose the appropriate AR account when you create customer invoices or receive customer payments.
Acid Test Ratio	The Acid Test Ratio (also known as the Quick Ratio) is a financial ratio that measures a firm's liquidity under extreme circumstances. In its simplest form, the acid test ratio is calculated by deducting total inventory value from current assets and dividing the result by current liabilities, or (current assets - total inventory value)/current liabilities. It's a more extreme form of the current ratio.
Amortize	In accounting, Amortize means to spread a cost (normally, net of its residual value) over a time period, which is usually its useful life. Often, intangible assets are amortized over time. In finance, amortize refers to a gradual repayment over time of a financial instrument such as a loan, where each repayment includes both the period's interest expense and a portion of the principal, resulting in a reduction of the loan balance over time.
Amyuni PDF Converter	The Amyuni PDF Converter is the software that is licensed by Intuit from Amyuni Technologies that allows QuickBooks to email reports and forms in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). Under Windows, it installs a printer labeled QuickBooks PDF Converter.
AP	AP (or sometimes A/P) is an acronym for Accounts Payable, which generally refers to the total amount of bills that a company owes to its vendors and suppliers. QuickBooks automatically creates 1 AP account the first time you enter a bill if it doesn't already exist. If you need multiple AP accounts, you can create them manually and choose the appropriate AP account when you enter or pay vendor bills.
AR	AR (or sometimes A/R) is an acronym for Accounts Receivable, which generally refers to the total amount of invoices that a company's customers owe to the firm. QuickBooks automatically creates 1 AR account the first time you create a customer invoice if it doesn't already exist. If you need multiple AR accounts, you can create them manually and choose the appropriate AR account when you create customer invoices or receive customer payments.
AVS	AVS is an acronym for Address Verification Service, a credit card security service for merchants. By matching the ZIP code recorded on a key-entered credit card transaction with the cardholder's address, AVS can reduce fraud and chargebacks.
Backwardation	Backwardation is a term used to describe a condition in the futures market for commodities where the price for future delivery of a commodity is lower than the current (spot) price. Backwardation is not the normal market condition for commodity futures that are non-perishable and have a cost of carry, such as storage or financing costs. It generally suggests an expectation on the part of traders of a near-term shortage in the commodity. Contango is the opposite market condition to backwardation.
Billing Rate Level List	The Billing Rate Level List is a QuickBooks list available in the Contractor, Professional Services, and Accountant editions of QuickBooks Premier that stores up to 100 fixed hourly rates or custom hourly rates per service item. Billing Rate Levels represent custom prices for time that over-ride standard prices for services performed by different employees or vendors.
Bond Premium	The amount that a buyer pays for a bond over par, or the face value of the bond. A bond sells for over par when market interest rates for bonds with similar characteristics, such as issuer risk, drop below the coupon rate on that bond. Interest rates and bond prices move inversely, or in opposite directions.
Budget	A budget is a plan for future performance, such as generating revenues or expenses, that enables an entity to measure that performance against actual results. In QuickBooks, budgeting functions are found on the Company menu and represent account-based plans for a fiscal year applicable to a single account, customer, or job.
Business Efficiency	Business Efficiency is a common financial ratio that is calculated by dividing operating revenue into operating expenses, as in operating expenses/operating revenue. Lower business efficiency ratios are better, since smaller expenditures produce proportionately larger revenues. As a growing proportion of total expenses are included in the numerator of the calculation, the ratio will appear to get worse.
Capital Lease	A type of lease under US GAAP that meets one of approximately 5 tests set forth is Financial Accounting Standards No. 13 and is accounted for on a firm's balance sheet similar to a purchase. It's sometimes referred to as a finance lease.
Chart of Accounts	Chart of Accounts is a list of all accounts entered in a company's General Ledger. Normally, accounts are grouped on the chart of accounts based on where they appear on the Balance Sheet or Profit & Loss Statement. In QuickBooks, the Chart of Accounts can be accessed from either the Lists->Chart of Accounts Company->Chart of Accounts menu selections. Keyboard shortcut Ctrl+A also displays the Chart of Accounts.
COGS	COGS is an acronym for Cost Of G oods Sold. It includes all of the direct costs (such as raw materials and labor manufacturing costs) of producing the products that a company sells, but it does not include indirect costs (such as sales or distribution costs). COGS is an expense item and appears on a company's Profit & Loss or Income Statement. It's also used to calculate a company's gross margin.
Contango	Contango is a term used to describe a condition in the futures market for commodities where the price for future delivery of a commodity is higher than the current (spot) price. A contango is the normal market condition for commodity futures that are non-perishable and have a cost of carry, such as storage or financing costs. Backwardation is the opposite market condition to contango.
Current Ratio	The Current Ratio is a financial ratio that measures a firm's liquidity. The current ratio is calculated by dividing current assets by current liabilities, or current assets/current liabilities. Because the current ratio is based on assets convertible to cash in 1 year or less and liabilities due in the same period, it's a measure applicable to the upcoming 12 months.
Depreciation	Depreciation is an accounting term that refers to the distribution over time of the cost of an asset net of its recoverable value. It's an expense item that appears on a firm's Profit & Loss Statement. Sometimes, depreciation is used to refer to the actual decline in an asset's value over time, as a result of wear and tear or the passage of time. Depreciation expense in accounting is based on estimates of an asset's useful life and residual value, and it's often tied to tax laws. Therefore, the depreciation expense may not be the same as the actual decline in value of the asset.
EBITDA	EBITDA is an acronym for Earnings Before Interest Depreciation, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. It's often used as a valuation metric because it ignores a company's capital structure and capital investments, which can then be accounted for separately.
FASB	FASB is an acronym for the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a private, not-for-profit organization created in 1973 to set and publicize the accounting standards that comprise US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
FICA	FICA is an acronym for the Federal Insurance Contributions Act, a US law which provides for a payroll tax on both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare. As of 2009, the tax consisted of 2 rates, a rate for Social Security subject to an income cap (the Social Security Wage Base) and a rate for Medicare not subject to a cap. The Social Security Wage Base is adjusted annually for inflation. For 2009, the Social Security rate for both employee and employer is 6.2% and the Social Security Wage Base is $106,800; the Medicare rate for both employee and employer is 1.45%. That makes the entire FICA tax rate equal to 15.3%.
Financial Accounting Standards Board	The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is a private, not-for-profit organization created in 1973 to set and publicize the accounting standards that comprise US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
Fixed Asset Item List	The Fixed Asset Item List is a list of a company's physical assets. It stores basic identification information, such as description, acquisition date, and cost. The list can be synchronized with information maintained by the Fixed Asset Manager, a QuickBooks component.
Fixed Asset Manager	The Fixed Asset Manager is a QuickBooks component that calculates depreciation on physical assets and transfers the appropriate journal entries to the QuickBooks general ledger. Physical assets are synchronized with the QuickBooks Fixed Asset Item List.
Fund Accounting	Fund accounting is a method of accounting used by public sector (e. g., cities and towns) and non-profit organizations because these entities have a need to track balances (i. e., assets and liabilities) and expenditures across multiple purposes, or funds. Money is normally appropriated to a purpose at the start of a fiscal year, and expenditures are made against the available balance for that particular purpose or fund over the course of time. As a result, public sector and non-profit entities have a need to produce balance sheets and income statements for each fund as well as the overall entity.
FUTA	FUTA is an acronym for Federal UnemploymentTaxAct is a federal law that provides for unemployment compensation to workers who have lost their jobs. FUTA levies a tax on employers only, not employees.
GAAP	GAAP is an acronym for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which are the rules to prepare and report on financial transactions for US public, private, and not-for-profit organizations set out by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Federal, state, and local governments prepare financial statements and report on them based on principles that differ from GAAP. The SEC has adopted rules for US firms to replace GAAP with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the period from 2009-2016.
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles	Generally Accepted Accounting Principles are the rules to prepare and report on financial transactions for US public, private, and not-for-profit organizations set out by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). Federal, state, and local governments prepare financial statements and report on them based on principles that differ from GAAP. The SEC has adopted rules for US firms to replace GAAP with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in the period from 2009-2016.
Gross Margin	Gross Margin is either the dollar amount (gross margin dollars) or percentage (gross margin percent) after paying for a company's direct product expenses (such as the raw material and labor costs to manufacture a product) included in its COGS. Gross margin dollars are simply product revenue less COGS. Gross margin percent is gross margin dollars divided by product revenue.
Intuit Statement Writer	Intuit Statement Writer is a Microsoft Excel based add-on for QuickBooks introduced by Intuit along with new QuickBooks products in September, 2009. It replaced Intuit's Financial Statement Designer. It enables a user to design and produce custom financial statements from QuickBooks financial data using the familiar Excel program.
ISW	ISW is an acronym for the Intuit Statement Writer, a Microsoft Excel based add-on for QuickBooks introduced by Intuit along with new QuickBooks products in September, 2009. It replaced Intuit's Financial Statement Designer. It enables a user to design and produce custom financial statements from QuickBooks financial data using the familiar Excel program.
Margin	Margin is either the dollar amount (margin dollars) or percentage (margin percent) after paying for a company's direct product expenses (such as the raw material and labor costs to manufacture a product) included in its COGS. Margin dollars are simply product revenue less COGS. Margin percent is margin dollars divided by product revenue.
Markup	Markup is the percentage over cost for a product's cost. To calculate a product's markup, divide the gross profit by the product's cost. Likewise, to calculate a product's selling price, multiply its cost by (1 + markup percentage). Margin, another measure of profitability, is lower than markup, because it is based on a product's selling price, which is normally higher than a product's cost.
Operating Lease	A type of lease where the term of the lease is typically much shorter than the useful life of the asset being leased. An operating lease is accounted for by expensing the lease payments, as opposed to a capital lease, which treats the leased asset similar to a purchase. Financial Accounting Standards No. 13 or International Accounting Standards 17 outline the factors to make the determination of whether a lease is an operating or capital lease.
Pacioli, Luca	Luca Pacioli (1445-1517) is often described as the Father of Accounting. In 1494 he published a book describing the double-entry system of bookkeeping used by Venetian merchants at the time. Much of his description of the procedures for keeping records continues to the present day.
Quick Ratio	The Quick Ratio is a financial ratio that measures a firm's liquidity under extreme circumstances. It's also sometimes called the "acid test ratio." In its simplest form, the quick ratio is calculated by deducting total inventory value from current assets and dividing the result by current liabilities, or (current assets - total inventory value)/current liabilities. It's a more extreme form of the current ratio.
ROE	ROE is an acronym for Return On Equity. It's a measure of the profitability of a business generated by the net financial contribution of the owners of a business. It's calculated by dividing a company's net income (before dividends to owners) by the net investment of those owners.
Start Date	In QuickBooks, the Start Date is the date on which you first started using QuickBooks to record financial transactions. Normally, account balances before this date will be entered directly into QuickBooks, and changes to these balances will be the result of entering transactions that occurred after the start date.
SUI	SUI is an acronym for State Unemployment Insurance, a tax that is collected from employers by most states to pay benefits to workers who have lost their jobs.
Transaction Journal	In QuickBooks, the Transaction Journal shows the debits and credits for a particular transaction. To produce the Transaction Journal, press the button or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Y when viewing a transaction.