Current and Noncurrent Assets on the Balance Sheet
Assets are resources a company owns. They consist of both current and noncurrent resources. Current assets are ones the company expects to convert to cash or use in the business within one year of the balance sheet date. Noncurrent assets are ones the company reckons it will hold for at least one year.
Current assets for the balance sheet
Examples of current assets are cash, accounts receivable, and inventory.
Cash: Cash includes accounts such as the company’s operating checking account, which the business uses to receive customer payments and pay business expenses, or an imprest account, which keeps a fixed amount of cash in it (such as petty cash).
Accounts receivable: This account shows all money customers owe to a business for a completed sales transaction. For example, Business A sells merchandise to Business B with the agreement that B pay for the merchandise within 30 business days.
Inventory: Goods available for sale reflect on a merchandiser’s balance sheet in this account. A merchandiser is a retail business, like your neighborhood grocery store, that sells to the general public. For a manufacturing company, a business that makes the items merchandisers sell, this category also includes the raw materials used to make items.
Prepaid expenses: Prepaids are any expense the business pays for in advance, such as rent, insurance, office supplies, postage, travel expense, or advances to employees. They also list as current assets, as long as the company envisions receiving the benefit of the prepaid items within 12 months of the balance sheet date.
Noncurrent assets for the balance sheet
Long-term assets are ones the company reckons it will hold for at least one year. Typical examples of long-term assets are investments and property, plant, and equipment currently in use by the company in day-to-day operations.
Fixed assets: This category is the company’s property, plant, and equipment. The account includes long-lived assets, such as a car, land, buildings, office equipment, and computers.
Long-term investments: These investments are assets held by the company, such as bonds, stocks, or notes.
Intangible assets: These assets lack a physical presence (you can’t touch or feel them). Patents, trademarks, and goodwill classify as noncurrent assets.
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.
