Bookkeeping Accounting Financial Terms Glossary

Bookkeeping Accounting Glossary of Financial Terms

We created this bookkeeping accounting financial terms glossary because its useful to understand the commonly used financial terms. These are a few important examples however its by no means a complete list of all bookkeeping accounting terms. It’s helpful to know a balance sheet from a balance date or forecast from your end of year financials etc.

Without a basic understanding of such, running a business will be challenging at best. We’ve kept the financial terms as relevant as possible with respect to our client base. For example we don’t concentrate on dealing in property accounting. Therefore there’s little to no point including financial terms specific to that field here.

We also didn’t include a number of the fairly obvious bookkeeping accounting terms like budget, debt, interest and tax. We may alter or introduce other examples in the future should we see the need. If you’d like to see more bookkeeping accounting financial terms within this glossary then please let us know. We’ll even add the four excluded above if you’d like to see them listed.

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Xero Business Performance Dashboard

Xero Performance Dashboard

Xero provides you with the ability to see where your business has been and heading. Use the performance dashboard in Xero and various metrics to map your success. It’s a great way to understand your financial position.

Working with a Xero Certified Advisor is the best way to make sure the performance dashboard information is in front of you. It’s also a fantastic way to make sure you have someone who can explain what it all means.

Too often businesses fail because business owners believe they have everything under control. This unfortunately couldn’t be further from the truth on several occasions. Account Wise is here to help you succeed and keep you on track with your goals.

Expansion – Sensible Business Practice Part 5

Expansion by Duplication

While a percentage in business manage to stay afloat without proper systems, a number don’t. Do you want to flounder around fumbling your way through simple tasks or have a functional approach? Want to evolve, keeping up with the times or stick with things as they are, falling behind the competition or progress and go through sustainable expansion?

What do you feel would happen if one tried expansion by duplication of non-existent or poorly constructed, untested systems? Would such likely be conducive to a successful practice? No, in short these businesses will typically struggle and ultimately fail. Unfortunately too many in this situation tend to seek help when it’s too late. This can occur because they never saw it coming.

More often than not in this situation it’s reasonable to assume better planning and understanding was lacking. Disregarding Sensible Business Practice is seriously unwise. The more invested cost/debt wise the more serious it is. To take poorly executed systems or a business with little to none and expect to  duplicate such is economic suicide.

The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, “house”) and νόμος (nomos, “custom” or “law”), hence “rules of the house (hold for good management)”.

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Foundation – Sensible Business Practice Part 4

Solid Foundation

When starting out in business it’s critical to build a solid foundation, first by establishing and secondly maintaining a set of systems specific to your business. There’s no magic pill for this or strict set of rules. It’s up to each person to put together the systems forming a solid foundation. Hopefully its better than your competitors, giving you the competitive edge. Don’t know where to start and want some help? Having a book-keeper with loads of experience is a great resource to turn too.

To build and test processes its helpful to accept it can involve more time than a standard week. Time spent during the formation stage can also equate to drawing less than you potentially should. Every business needs capital to work and during this stage you don’t yet have an established basis. Sure there are books that say pay yourself first, too working to a strict schedule to separate business time from personal. In our opinion however you should only introduce things like this down the track, when you know your business is reasonably secure. We can’t stress enough how important it is to undertake the critical ground work forming a solid foundation.

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Business Owners – Sensible Business Practice Part 3

Business Owners Systems

While it would be great if business owners could have time off and do everything needing no one else, so no extra wage related expenses, whether they’re employees or part-time professional such as Lawyers, accountants, or bookkeepers however it’s not practical and in most instances, it’s just not possible.

It’s critical to engage the right person(s) to undertake the tasks you can’t. Let face it, most business owners don’t want to do everything, so finding the right team is potentially going to make all the difference between whether you just stay afloat, sink like a rock or crack into markets you never thought possible when first starting out.

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Business Plan – Sensible Business Practice Part 2

Business Plan Priority

As a company director or person wanting your own business, building a solid foundation is your priority. Without a firm foundation the walls of your business can become compromised with debt etc and collapse resulting in bankruptcy. So first on your to do list is to put together a well thought out business plan.

A business plan is not something you simply throw together to use for let’s say a business loan and then chuck it away. No! It’s a tool that you should use to develop and give direction and drive to your business.

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