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.

Any depreciation method that takes bigger deductions in an asset's early years and smaller ones as it ages.

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.

Two adjusting entries. An accrual records something before the cash moves. A deferral holds recognition until after the cash moves.

Costs a company has already incurred but not yet paid, recorded as liabilities so the expense lands in the right period.

An investor who buys a meaningful stake in a company specifically to push for changes in strategy, board seats, or cash returns.

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.

An estimate of the receivables a company expects never to collect, subtracted from accounts receivable on the balance sheet.

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

The independent auditor's formal conclusion on whether a company's financial statements are fairly presented under the rules.

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.

The group elected by shareholders to oversee a company, hire and fire the chief executive, and approve major decisions.

What a company's assets are worth on the balance sheet after subtracting everything it owes. The accounting version of net worth.

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 tradable unit standing for one metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions, either allowed under a cap or avoided by a project.

The report tracking actual cash in and out, split into operating, investing, and financing activities.

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

The organized list of every account a business uses, grouped into assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses.

A company rule requiring executives to return incentive pay that was awarded based on financial results later found to be wrong.

Net income plus certain gains and losses that bypass the income statement, such as currency swings and some pension changes.

The system of rules, board structures, and controls that decides who holds power in a company and who answers for how it is used.

The direct cost of the products or services a company actually sold in the period, materials and production labor included.

The average number of days a company holds inventory before selling it, the same idea as turnover expressed in days.

The average number of days a company takes to pay its own suppliers after receiving a bill.

The average number of days it takes a company to collect cash after making a sale on credit.

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.

Money a company has collected but not yet earned. It sits on the balance sheet as a liability until the work is delivered.

The system where every transaction is recorded twice, as a debit in one account and an equal credit in another.

Profit left after every operating cost and interest expense has been subtracted, but before any income tax is taken out.

How a company accounts for a stake big enough for influence but too small for control, roughly 20 to 50 percent ownership.

An approach that weighs environmental, social, and governance factors when judging a company's risks and long-term prospects.

A rating firm's number summarizing how a company handles environmental, social, and governance factors, using that firm's own method.

The full pay package for a company's top executives, including salary, bonus, stock awards, and benefits, disclosed in the proxy.

An inventory method that assumes the oldest units are sold first, so the newest costs are what stay on the balance sheet.

A company reissuing past financial statements because the originals contained a material error, correcting figures investors already used.

The rulebook U.S. companies follow when they report financial results, so one company's numbers can be compared with another's.

The master record of every account a business keeps, where all transactions land and financial statements are built from.

The accounting assumption that a business will keep operating for at least another year, and the warning issued when that is in doubt.

A contract promising an executive large payments and benefits if they lose their job after the company is acquired or changes hands.

A non-cash charge that cuts the goodwill from a past acquisition when the acquired business is no longer worth what was paid.

Marketing that overstates how environmentally or socially responsible a product, fund, or company actually is.

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

What is left from sales after subtracting the direct cost of the goods or services sold, before any overhead.

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.

The accounting rulebook used across most of the world outside the United States, so cross-border financial statements can be compared.

Investing that targets a measurable social or environmental result alongside a financial return, with that result tracked and reported.

The report showing what a company sold, what it cost to sell, and what was left as profit over a stretch of time.

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.

A board member with no material relationship to the company beyond the seat, so they can oversee management without a conflict.

How many times a business sells and replaces its average inventory in a period. Higher usually means goods are moving.

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

An inventory method that assumes the newest units are sold first, so the oldest costs are what stay on the balance sheet.

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.

The depreciation system U.S. tax law requires for most business property, using set asset classes and front-loaded write-offs.

Valuing an asset at what it would sell for today instead of what was paid for it, with the change recorded in the books.

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

The accounting rule that puts an expense in the same period as the revenue it helped produce, so profit reflects real effort.

The threshold where an error or omission is big enough to change a reasonable reader's decision about the company.

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.

The slice of a subsidiary that the parent company does not own, shown separately inside consolidated equity.

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.

The costs of running the business that are not tied directly to making each unit, such as rent, salaries, and marketing.

Two ways to account for a lease. One spreads a single even rent expense, the other splits it into interest and amortization.

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 defense that lets a company issue cheap new shares once a bidder crosses an ownership threshold, diluting that bidder's stake.

Money paid up front for something not used yet, held as an asset and expensed as the benefit is actually consumed.

Financial figures presented on an adjusted or hypothetical basis, either projections or results with certain items excluded.

Casting your shareholder vote without attending the meeting, by instructing someone to vote your shares the way you direct.

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.

The rules deciding when a sale counts as revenue, which is when the work is delivered, not when the cash shows up.

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.

A shareholder vote on executive pay that is advisory, so the board hears the result but is not required to change anything.

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.

A three-part split of a company's greenhouse gas emissions: its own operations, the energy it buys, and its wider value chain.

The requirement that a company break out results for its major business lines or regions instead of showing only one total.

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.

Selling, general and administrative expenses. The overhead of selling the product and running the company, grouped on one line.

Shareholders using their ownership rights to press a company to change its strategy, governance, pay, or board composition.

An approach that screens investments against a set of values, usually by excluding industries an investor does not want to own.

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

A board split into classes so only part of it stands for election each year, meaning no single vote can replace the whole board.

Shareholders own the company's stock, while stakeholders are everyone affected by it, including workers, customers, and communities.

The report explaining how the owners' stake in a company changed over a period, line by line.

Spreading the cost of a long-lived asset evenly across the years it is expected to be used, the same amount each year.

A list of every ledger account and its balance, used to check that total debits equal total credits before statements are built.

Cutting the recorded value of an asset on the books because it is no longer worth what the company paid for it.