Accounting Tips for Business Managers
As business manager, you’re in charge of your business’s accounting needs, which involves figuring out financial statements and preparing and using financial reports. Keep these useful accounting tips in mind:
You need a smartly designed P&L (profit and loss) report that serves as a practical tool for managing profit. The external income statement does not serve this purpose well. A good P&L report highlights the key variables that drive your business’s profit performance. The basic P&L template should be adapted to fit each profit center in your business.
*A good P&L report focuses on margin, sales volume, variable expenses, and fixed expenses. Margin equals sales price minus product cost and minus the variable expenses of making the sale. Your business must sell enough volume to earn total margin equal to fixed expenses before breaking into the profit zone. After your business reaches its break-even point, the margin from additional sales goes entirely to profit (before income tax).
*Relatively small changes in profit factors can yield dramatic results. A small slippage in margin per unit can have a devastating impact because unit margin is multiplied by sales volume. On the other hand, a slight boost in sales price or a little more sales volume yields a lot more profit.
*You must clearly understand every cost figure you use. Many costs depend on which accounting method is used, such as the choice between the last-in, first-out (LIFO) and the first-in, first-out (FIFO) methods, or they depend on rather arbitrary allocation methods. Know how your costs are calculated!
Be proactive in choosing the accounting methods for your business and designing accounting reports. All too often business managers adopt the policy that accounting is best left to the accountants. You don’t ever want to be in doubt about your own financial statements and internal P&L reports.
*Establish and enforce strong internal controls. Businesses handle a lot of data and money, which present countless opportunities for errors and fraud. Make sure bulletproof internal controls are in place and working. If your internal controls are weak, someone may steal some of your hard-earned profit.
Accounting Glossary
accounting equation
The equation Assets = Liabilities + Equity, which demonstrates the two-sided nature of accounting and is useful for explaining the concept of double-entry accounting (or double-entry bookkeeping).
Accounting Glossary
accounting period
The time period for which financial information is being tracked in a business, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually.
Accounting Glossary
accounts receivable
An account that records the amounts that customers owe to a business.
Accounting Glossary
adjusting entry
A correction made to a bookkeeping account that adjusts for accounting errors or other necessary changes at the end of the accounting period.
Accounting Glossary
cash flows
Used to describe the source or sources of cash or how cash is used.
Accounting Glossary
Chart of Accounts
A list of all the accounts used by a business, including what types of transactions go into each account.
Accounting Glossary
debit
An accounting entry that increases an asset or expense account, and decreases a liability or income account.
Accounting Glossary
dividends
A portion of a company’s profits paid by share of common stock on a quarterly or annual basis.
Accounting Glossary
FASB
Financial Accounting Standards Board. FASB is the highest-ranking authority in the private (non-government) sector of the U.S. for making pronouncements on GAAP and for keeping accounting standards up-to-date.
Accounting Glossary
Federal Unemployment Tax
In the U.S., the fund that used to be known simply as Unemployment. Employers contribute to the fund, and states also collect taxes to fill their unemployment fund reserves. (The acronym FUTA means Federal Unemployment Tax Act.)
Accounting Glossary
fidelity bonds
A type of insurance — typically carried by employers for their employees — that helps guard against theft and reduce the risk of loss.
Accounting Glossary
FIFO
First-in, first-out. A method for costs of goods sold in which a business charges out product costs to cost of goods sold expense in the chronological order in which the goods were acquired.
Accounting Glossary
fungible
Describes a product that is interchangeable and virtually indistinguishable from another product.
Accounting Glossary
General Ledger
A summary of all of a business’s accounts and transactions.
Accounting Glossary
IASB
International Accounting Standards Board. The IASB (based in London) is the main authoritative accounting standards setter outside the U.S.
Accounting Glossary
Journals
The location in which bookkeepers keep records (in chronological order) of daily company transactions.
Accounting Glossary
LIFO
Last-in, first-out. A method for costs of goods sold that selects the last item you purchased first, and then works backward until you have the total cost for the total number of units sold during the period.
Accounting Glossary
LLP
Limited liability partnership. A legal structure that state laws offer to qualified professionals in which all the partners have limited liability.
Accounting Glossary
PC
Professional corporation. A legal structure that state laws offer to qualified professionals who otherwise would have to operate as an unlimited partnership liability.
Accounting Glossary
petty cash
A cash account that businesses keep on hand for unexpected expenses.
Accounting Glossary
revenue
Monies that are collected in the process of selling a company’s goods and services.
Accounting Glossary
salvage value
The amount that an asset is worth after it has been fully depreciated.
Accounting Glossary
statement of cash flows
A financial statement that summarizes a business’s cash inflows and outflows during an accounting period.
Accounting Glossary
transactions
Economic exchanges between a business or other entity and the parties with which the entity interacts and makes deals.
Accounting Glossary
worker’s compensation insurance
A type of insurance carried by employers that covers its employees in case they are injured on the job.
Share This
