Kenneth W. Boyd

The certified public accountant (CPA) credential is a valuable tool for you to obtain. The designation will help you pursue a career in accounting and in other areas of business. To become a CPA, you must study for and pass the CPA exam. To increase your chances of success, you need to make sure you’ve prepared properly, including completing the necessary paperwork and requirements for your state, and study thoroughly for each of the four tests that make up the exam.

Accounting, as you may guess, involves a lot of math. As you practice various types of accounting problems, and when you begin doing accounting work for real, you will need to utilize various formulas to calculate the information you need.10 useful accounting formulasThe following are some of the most frequently used accounting formulas.

Cost accounting is a valuable tool you use to reduce and eliminate costs in a business. You also use cost accounting to determine a price for your product or service that will allow you to earn a reasonable profit.Familiarize yourself with the most important formulas, terms, and principles you need to know to apply cost accounting.

A journal entry is a record of transactions that includes the date of each transaction, the account numbers, account names, and amounts to be debited and credited. When an accountant looks at a journal entry, she can decipher what happened in that transaction. Here are a couple of practice questions to test whether you can translate a journal entry into English.

The Limited Liability Company or LLC is an alternative type of business entity. A Limited Liability Company or LLC is like a corporation regarding limited liability, and it’s like a partnership regarding the flexibility of dividing profit among the owners. An LLC can elect to be treated either as a partnership or as a corporation for federal income tax purposes.

In cost accounting, a budget is a financial plan that includes both financial and non-financial information. Its most obvious features are a projection of revenue (how much you anticipate selling) and expenses (how much you anticipate spending). The budget can also contain non-financial information, such as how many employees you think you need.

Advertising is a very common line item in cost accounting. When you advertise, you obviously spend company resources. You need to know if the additional cost will generate higher profits. A marketing executive used to tell potential clients, “If you don’t advertise, nothing happens.” Sure, he was trying to sell advertising, but he had a point.