Glossary of Terms
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- Management:
- The group of people who have overall responsibility for operating a business and for meeting its goals.
- Management accounting:
- The process of identifying, measuring, accumulating, analyzing, preparing, interpreting, and communicating financial and non-financial information used by management to plan, evaluate, and control the organization and to ensure that resources are used and accounted for appropriately. The process of producing accounting information for the internal use of a company’s management.
- Management advisory services:
- One of the consulting services offered by public accountants.
- Management information system (MIS):
- The interconnected subsystems that provide the information necessary to operate a business.
- Manual data processing:
- A system of accounting in which each transaction is entered manually from a source document into the general journal (input device) and each debit and credit is posted manually to the correct ledger account (processor and memory device) for the eventual preparation of financial statements (output devices).
- Manufacturing cost flow:
- The flow of manufacturing costs (direct material, direct labor, and factory overhead) through the Material Inventory, Work in Process Inventory, and Finish Goods Inventory accounts to the Cost of Goods Sold account.
- Matching rule:
- Revenues must be assigned to the accounting period in which the goods are sold or the services performed, and expenses must be assigned to the accounting period in which they are used to produce revenue.
- Material Inventory:
- An inventory account made up of the balances of materials and supplies on hand at a given time.
- Materiality:
- The convention that requires that an item or event in a financial statement be important to the users of financial statements.
- Maturity date:
- The due date of a promissory note.
- Maturity value:
- The total proceeds of a promissory note including principle and interest at the maturity date.
- Merchandise inventory:
- The goods on hand at any one time that are available for sale to customers.
- Mixed costs:
- Costs that result when both variable and fixed costs (for example, repairs and maintenance costs) are charged to the same general ledger account.
- Money measure:
- The recording of all business transactions in term of money.
- Multi-step form:
- A form of income statement that arrives at net income in steps.