| Account | Record within an accounting system in which increases and decreases in a specific asset, liability, equity, revenue, or expense are entered and stored.
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| Account balance | Difference in an account between total debits and total credits (including the beginning balance).
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| Account payable | Liability created by buying goods or services on credit; backed by the buyer's general credit standing.
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| Balance column account | Account with debit and credit columns for recording entries and another column for showing the balance of the account after each entry.
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| Chart of accounts | List of accounts used by a company; includes an identification number for each account.
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| Compound journal entry | Journal entry that affects at least three accounts.
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| Credit | Recorded on the right side; an entry that decreases asset and expense accounts, and increases liability, equity, and revenue accounts; abbreviated Cr.
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| Creditors | Individuals or organizations entitled to receive payments.
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| Debit | Recorded on the left side; an entry that increases asset and expense accounts, and decreases liability, equity, and revenue accounts; abbreviated Dr.
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| Debt ratio | Ratio of total liabilities to total assets; used to reflect risk associated with a company's debts.
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| Debtors | Individuals or organizations that owe money.
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| Depreciation | Expense created by allocating the cost of plant and equipment to periods in which they are used; represents the expense of using the asset.
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| Double-entry accounting | Accounting system in which each transaction affects at least two accounts and has at least one debit and one credit.
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| General journal | All-purpose journal for recording the debits and credits of transactions and events.
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| Journal | Record in which transactions are entered before they are posted to ledger accounts; also called book of original entry.
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| Journalizing | Process of recording transactions in a journal.
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| Ledger | Record containing all accounts (with amounts) for a business; also called general ledger.
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| Posting | Process of transferring journal entry information to the ledger.
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| Posting reference (PR) column | A column in journals in which individual ledger account numbers are entered when entries are posted to those ledger accounts.
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| Source documents | Source of information for accounting entries that can be in either paper or electronic form; also called business papers.
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| T-account | Tool used to show the effects of transactions and events on individual accounts.
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| Trial balance | List of accounts and their balances at a point in time prior to financial statement preparation; total debit balances equal total credit balances.
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