Bookkeeping Glossary: An A–Z Index

This is an index, not an article. Every entry below answers one question in a few hundred words: what the term means, where it shows up in a real set of books, and what goes wrong when it is handled badly. If you want a guided explanation of the twenty core concepts instead, start with our accounting terms explainer — this page is for looking one thing up quickly.

The scope is deliberate. These are bookkeeping terms — recording, categorising, reconciling and reporting. We are a bookkeeping company, not a CPA firm, so you will not find 409A valuations, 83(b) elections or R&D credits here. Those are tax and venture-finance terms, and defining them would invite questions we are not licensed to answer. What you will find is the vocabulary a bookkeeper actually uses, including the handful of QuickBooks-specific accounts that confuse almost everyone the first time they appear.

Reconciliation and the Month-End Close

Trial balance · Merchant fee netting

Accounts That Confuse People

Undeposited funds · Clearing account · Suspense account · Unapplied cash payment · Opening balance equity · Retained earnings

Journal Entries and Adjustments

Adjusting entry · Reversing entry · Closing entry

Revenue, Cost and Timing

Deferred revenue · Accrued expense · Work in progress (WIP)

Terms We Already Cover in Depth

Where we already have a full article on a term, the glossary links out to it rather than publishing a second page on the same thing. These are the existing explainers:

Accounts receivable aging report · Accounts payable aging report · Credit memo · Cash basis vs accrual basis · The accounting equation and double entry · Profit and loss statement · Balance sheet · Depreciation · Amortization · Prepaid expenses and the 12-month rule · Process costing · The conservatism principle · Ratio analysis · Preparing for an audit

Bank reconciliation has its own service page rather than a glossary entry, because it is something we do rather than merely define: see bank reconciliation services.

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