Numbers dressed up in fancy suits pretending to be words.
The cumulative profits a company has kept rather than distributing to shareholders as dividends—basically the corporate equivalent of money in the mattress. It's how companies fund growth without begging investors for more cash.
The direct costs of producing goods or services that were actually sold, abbreviated as COGS. It includes materials and labor but not the CEO's golf club membership, no matter how insistently he argues it's 'client development.'
Processes and procedures designed to prevent fraud, errors, and general financial chaos within an organization. They're like locks on doors—ineffective if someone with a key decides to rob the place, but they keep honest people honest.
A comprehensive listing of all accounts in an organization's general ledger, organized into categories like assets, liabilities, and expenses. It's the financial filing system that makes sense to exactly one person: whoever designed it.
Combining the financial statements of a parent company and its subsidiaries into a single unified report, eliminating intercompany transactions to avoid counting the same revenue twice. It's like merging family budgets while hiding the money you owe your brother.
A quarterly conference call where executives present financial results to analysts and investors, then spend an hour tap-dancing around difficult questions. It's theater performed by people who memorized the phrase 'we remain cautiously optimistic.'
The degree to which a company's costs are fixed versus variable, determining how profits change with sales volume. High operating leverage means each additional sale drops straight to the bottom line—until sales drop and you discover fixed costs are indeed fixed.
Current assets divided by current liabilities, measuring whether you can pay short-term bills with short-term assets. A ratio above 1.0 suggests solvency; below suggests you should probably start returning the recruiters' calls.
The practice of using accounting flexibility to smooth earnings or hit targets—a polite term for creative number manipulation that's legal until suddenly it isn't. It's the difference between aggressive accounting and fraud, and that line is thinner than accountants admit.
Operating income divided by revenue, showing what percentage of sales remains after covering operating expenses but before interest and taxes. It's the profitability measure that reveals whether your business model works or you're just moving money around creatively.
A recorded transaction in the accounting system showing debits and credits that must balance. Each entry tells a tiny story of money moving, though reading them is only slightly more entertaining than watching paint dry.
The reduction in taxable income from deductible expenses like interest or depreciation, effectively making Uncle Sam subsidize your business decisions. It's why debt isn't always bad—the government pays part of your interest bill through reduced taxes.
The time between paying suppliers and collecting from customers, measured in days. Negative is magical—you get paid before paying bills, turning working capital into a profit center. Positive means you're funding your customers' purchases with your own money.
The use of accounting skills to investigate fraud, embezzlement, and financial crimes—essentially detective work for people who find excitement in spreadsheet anomalies. It's where accounting meets CSI, minus the dramatic lighting.
The corporate euphemism for 'stealing,' typically involving someone with fiduciary responsibility who decided that 'other people's money' is really more of a suggestion than a rule. It's the white-collar crime of choice for accountants, executives, and nonprofit board members who convinced themselves they were just 'borrowing' the funds temporarily. Unlike shoplifting a candy bar, this usually involves spreadsheets, offshore accounts, and a lawyer explaining why technically it's 'misappropriation' not 'theft.'
An accounting entry that increases assets or decreases liabilities in the left column of the ledger, or in normal-person terms, money leaving your bank account. It's the financial industry's fancy word for "subtraction" that confuses everyone because in banking, a debit increases your account from the bank's perspective but decreases it from yours. The reason accountants have job security is explaining why debits aren't always subtractions.
In business and legal contexts, the thorough investigation and analysis conducted before making a decision or completing a transaction. Due diligence is the corporate equivalent of looking before you leap, except you're also hiring consultants to examine the depth, temperature, and legal ownership of the water below. Skip this step and you might acquire a company that's actually three lawsuits in a trench coat.
Money you borrow today that magically transforms into significantly more money you owe tomorrow, thanks to the mystical powers of interest rates. Think of it as financial time travel where your future self picks up the tab, plus fees. The cornerstone of modern capitalism and the reason your banker drives a nicer car than you do.
Money that exits your bank account faster than your ability to justify why you needed it in the first place. In business contexts, it's the art of categorizing spending so the tax man won't cry, and in personal finance, it's the stuff that makes you wonder where your paycheck went. Track them obsessively or live in blissful ignorance—there is no middle ground.
Short for cryptocurrency, the digital money that exists entirely in the cloud and whose value fluctuates more wildly than your mood on a Monday morning. It's either the future of finance or the world's most elaborate Ponzi scheme, depending on whether you bought Bitcoin at $100 or $60,000. Also refers to cryptography, the actual useful technology that crypto enthusiasts sometimes remember exists.
Anything you own that's worth actual money or could theoretically be converted into money, from real estate to that dusty server in the corner. In business, it's the good side of your balance sheet that makes you look solvent. In intelligence work, it refers to human sources—actual people feeding you information—which is a wildly different but equally valuable definition.
In finance, the Greek letter measuring how much an option's price will swing when market volatility does its thing—basically, it's sensitivity to how much everyone is collectively freaking out. The higher the vega, the more your option's value rides the uncertainty rollercoaster. Named after Las Vegas (sort of), because options trading is basically sanctioned gambling with more math.
A contractual clause allowing a company to demand return of previously paid compensation, typically when executives are caught cooking the books or performance metrics turn out to be fiction. It's the corporate equivalent of 'give me back my money.'
A trader who believes that staring at price charts and drawing lines on graphs can predict the future, also known as a technical analyst. They're basically financial astrologers with better software.