BIB – Glossary of Terms
A
ACCOUNTING – an information and measurement system that identifies, records, and communicates relevant and comparable information about an organization’s business activities.
ACCOUNTS PAYABLE – (A/P) - What a business owes to its suppliers and other creditors at a given point in time.
ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE – (A/R) - The amount due to a business by its customers at a given point in time.
ANALYTICS (web site) - A program which assists in gathering and analyzing data about website visitation and usage. Google analytics is a feature rich, popular, free analytics program.
ASSETS - Any item of economic value owned by an individual or corporation, especially that which could be converted to cash.
B
BALANCE SHEET – a company’s financial position (types and amounts of assets, liabilities, and equity) at a point in time.
BREAKEVEN POINT - The point where total costs equal total sales revenue and the company neither makes a profit nor suffers a loss.
BUSINESS PLAN - A formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those.
C
C-CORP - Legal form of doing business that creates a separate legal entity from the individual owners.
CHART OF ACCOUNTS - System of accounting records developed by an organization to be compatible with its unique financial structure, and in agreement with the amount of detail required in its financial statements.
CLOUD COMPUTING - A method of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service via the Internet and are accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection.
CONSULTANT - An individual who provides guidance and information to another individual. A professional that helps you plan that appropriate course of action.
CORPORATION - a legal entity or structure created under the authority of a state's laws, consisting of a person or group of persons who become shareholders.
D
DBA – (Doing business as) - Used to indicate the public alias of a business legally constituted under a different name.
DNS – (Domain Name Service) - A computer that translates hostnames to IP addresses on behalf of requesting clients. Yahoo.com has an IP address of 209.131.36.159.
DOMAIN NAMES - A sign post on the Internet, it is a unique name that identifies an Internet site. Examples include mcdonalds.com, the-small-biz-pro.net or depaul.edu.
E
EIN - Employer Identification Number - also known as a Federal Tax Identification Number and is used to identify a business entity.
EXPENSE BUDGET - The amount established for each expense and allocated budget for a fiscal period.
F
FEIN - Federal Employer Identification Number - see EIN
G
GAAP – Generally Accepted Accounting Principles – concepts and rules that govern financial accounting practice.
GENERAL LEDGER – (G/L) - The collection of all Asset, Liability, Equity, Revenue, and expense accounts for a business or operating concern.
GENERAL PARTNERSHIP - Similar to a sole proprietorship but with multiple owners.
H
I
INCOME STATEMENT – a company’s revenues and expenses along with the resulting net income or (loss) over a specified period of time due to earnings.
INTERNET - A large global network comprised of tens of thousands of smaller networks. The World Wide Web is one element of the Internet.
IP ADDRESS - (Internet Protocol address) - The address of a computer attached to a TCP/IP network. Every client and server device attached to the Internet must have a unique IP address. IP addresses are translated to user-friendly names using a DNS server.
J
JPG (or jpeg) - A file extension indicating a file of JPEG file format; i.e., a digital picture.
K
L
LIABILITIES - is a financial obligation, debt, claim or potential loss.
LLP - (Limited Liability Partnership) - similar to a general partnership but with a separate classification of partners.
LLC - (Limited Liability Company) - in the law of the vast majority of United States jurisdictions is a legal form of business company that provides limited liability to its owners.
M
N
O
P
PARTNERSHIP - Type of business entity in which partners (owners) share with each other the profits or losses of the business undertaking in which all have invested.
Q
R
ROA - Return on assets -The ratio of operating income divided by total assets employed that indicates the relative operating efficiency of an organization.
ROI – Return on investment - the ratio of net profit after income tax, over owner’s equity. Usually expressed as a percentage.
S
S-CORP - Type of corporate legal form that is taxed like a sole proprietorship.
SEARCH ENGINE - A tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, text, and other types of files.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) - The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines.
SMB - An abbreviation for small and medium-size business, or small and mid-size business. A business with 100 or fewer employees is generally considered small; one with 100-999 employees is considered to be medium-sized.
SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP - Type of business entity which legally has no separate existence from its owner.
T
THE-SMALL-BIZ-PRO – A website devoted to small business education and assistance.
TWITTER - Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates or ‘tweets.’
U
V
W
WEBSITE (or web site) - A location on the World Wide Web (or Internet) that contains information about a specific topic, product or service. A website usually contains multiple pages with different types of information about the topic.
WORLD WIDE WEB (or ‘The Web) - A system that lets a user access information on the Internet. People often use the term Web to refer to the Internet, but they are not exactly the same thing. The World Wide Web operates over the Internet, and it is the most widely used part of the Internet.
X
Y
Z
References
nihseniorhealth.gov/toolkit/toolkitfiles/html/Glossary.html
Wikipedia.com
Businessdictionary.com
Longtail.co.za
