Work & Business.

Form 1099-K reports the payments you received through cards or apps like PayPal, Venmo, or Stripe when they cross the reporting threshold.

Form 1099-NEC is the tax form a business sends to report money it paid you as a non-employee for your services once it crosses the reporting threshold.

An accountable plan lets a business reimburse employee expenses tax-free, as long as the costs are documented and any extra is returned.

Accounts payable is the money your business owes to suppliers and vendors for goods or services you received but have not yet paid for.

Accounts receivable is the money customers owe your business for goods or services you have already delivered but not yet been paid for.

Accounts receivable is money customers owe your business; accounts payable is money you owe suppliers. One is coming in, the other going out.

The actual expense method deducts the real, business-use share of your car costs (gas, repairs, insurance, depreciation) instead of a flat per-mile rate.

Articles of incorporation are the legal document filed with a state to officially create a corporation and put it on the public record.

Backup withholding is when a payer must hold back a flat percentage of your payments for the IRS, usually because your taxpayer ID is missing or wrong.

A balance sheet is a snapshot of what your business owns, what it owes, and what is left over for the owner on a single day.

Burn rate is how much cash your business loses each month when it is spending more than it brings in.

A business bank account is a separate account in your company's name used to keep business money apart from your personal money.

A business credit card is a card issued in your company's name for business spending, often with rewards and a higher limit than personal cards.

A business credit score rates how reliably your company pays its debts, used by lenders and suppliers to decide whether to extend credit.

Business expenses are the ordinary, necessary costs of running your business that you can subtract from revenue to lower your taxable income.

A business license is government permission, usually local, that lets you legally operate your business, often renewed for a fee each year.

A business license is general permission to operate; a permit is approval for a specific regulated activity, like serving food or doing electrical work.

A C corporation is a business taxed as its own legal entity: it pays corporate income tax on profits, and shareholders are taxed again on dividends.

A chargeback is when a customer disputes a card charge with their bank, and the money is pulled back out of your business account.

A DBA (doing business as) is a registered trade name that lets you operate your business under a name different from your legal name or entity name.

The de minimis safe harbor lets a business deduct low-cost items right away instead of depreciating them, up to a set per-item dollar amount.

Gross margin is the percent of each sales dollar left after paying the direct cost of making the thing you sold.

The hobby loss rule limits tax deductions for an activity the IRS decides is a hobby rather than a real business run for profit.

The home office deduction lets self-employed people write off part of their home costs for a space used regularly and only for business.

Independent contractor vs employee is the legal test of whether a worker controls their own work or the business controls how and when it gets done.

An invoice is a bill you send a customer that lists what you sold, how much they owe, and when payment is due.

An LLC (limited liability company) is a state-formed business structure that legally separates your personal assets from business debts and lawsuits.

An LLP, or limited liability partnership, is a partnership where each partner is shielded from the business debts and the misconduct of the other partners.

Markup is your profit measured against your cost; margin is the same profit measured against your selling price, so the two percentages never match.

Merchant fees are what a business pays to accept card payments; interchange is the largest slice of that fee, paid to the customer's bank.

The mileage deduction lets you write off business driving using a flat IRS rate per mile instead of tracking every car cost.

Net margin is the percent of each sales dollar you actually keep as profit after paying every business expense and taxes.

An operating agreement is the internal contract among an LLC's owners that sets out how the business is run, owned, and how profits are split.

A partnership is a business owned by two or more people who share its profits, losses, and management, with the income taxed on the owners' returns.

A payment processor is the company that moves a customer's card payment from their bank to yours and charges a fee on each sale.

A registered agent is the person or company you name to receive legal papers and official state mail for your business at a real street address.

A resale certificate lets a business buy inventory without paying sales tax, because the tax is collected when the goods are sold to the final customer.

Runway is how many months your business can keep operating before it runs out of cash at its current burn rate.

An S corporation is a tax election that passes profits to owners' personal returns and pays owner-employees a salary, often cutting self-employment tax.

Sales tax nexus is the connection to a state that makes your business responsible for collecting and sending in that state's sales tax.

Schedule C is the IRS form sole proprietors and single-member LLCs use to report their business income and expenses on a personal tax return.

The self-employed health insurance deduction lets you subtract health, dental, and qualifying long-term care premiums from taxable income.

Self-employment tax is the 15.3% Social Security and Medicare tax the self-employed pay on their own earnings, both halves instead of a W-2 split.

A sole proprietorship is the simplest business structure: one person owns it, with no legal separation between the owner and the company.