Accounting Convention

  

The ways accountants "do things."

The common practices of accountants are known as accounting conventions. They’re not legally binding methods, but they are the way you do things if you’re an accountant that doesn’t want to get fired, sued, or go to jail. All professions have conventions. There are no laws, for example, stating that TV journalists can’t type with their tongue while on camera, but that practice will probably get you fired. There are no laws against a lawyer juggling in court, but he probably won’t win many cases. And although there’s no law against a writer of clever finance definitions listing 17 zany comparisons to accounting convention, nobody would read them.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is an Income Statement?51 Views

00:03

what is an income statement I made money yeah that's an income statement and it's [Man jumping up as money rains down]

00:11

actually not all that far off from what accountants lawyers bankers and other

00:14

forms of humans who count beans call an income statement well cleverly named an

00:19

income statement is a statement of income it just states how you made your [Two guys stood at a food stall]

00:24

income your french fries smoothie stand like who would have ever thought that

00:29

would taste good sold a million units at five bucks each to give you five million

00:35

dollars in revenue last year well you had some cost that went with

00:39

those sales though you had to buy cups the french fries and other unnamed [Costs of french fries smoothie stand]

00:44

ingredients and you had to pay 2 some ones to stand there and convince people

00:48

to drink liquefied potatoes then you had to rent space for your stand and buy

00:53

insurance and advertise and that abnoxious mascot in the potato costume

00:58

you had five million in revenue and three million in expenses and this [revenue of french fries smoothie stand]

01:03

number right here that's your pre-tax or operating profit

01:07

you then take away your 30% in taxes which on two million dollars is 600

01:13

grand and blammo that 1.4 million is your net income or [net income figure for business]

01:18

after-tax profit this whole thing right here is your income statement and yeah [income statement for french fries smoothie business]

01:24

it can and does get way way more complex than this but let's start with starch

01:29

smoothies and work our way up [man at french fry stand thinking about selling sushi shakes]

Up Next

Finance: What is GAAP?
21 Views

GAAP is an acronym for Generally Accepted Accounting Practices. In order to remove as much subjectivity as possible, accounting policy bodies, such...

Finance: What is AICPA?
6 Views

What is AICPA? The AICPA is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, or CPAs. It is the group of accountants that basically make all...

Finance: What Does "Boilerplate" Mean?
1 Views

What does “Boilerplate” mean? The term boilerplate is used to describe documents or methods completed or used in the most basic and vanilla sen...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)