Daft accounting related definitions

Book value: Value placed on an asset for accounting purposes that bears no relation to its true worth.
Budgeting: An exercise where the unknowledgeable force the unwilling to predict the impossible based entirely on the inaccurate.
Credit: Something that accountants rarely get.
FIFO: 'First In, First Out', a method of valuing stock. Also a method never used when accountancy firms are considering redundancies.
Goodwill: Concept invested to explain the difference between the value of a company and the price another company paid for it.
LIFO: 'Last In, Last Out', a method of valuing stock. Also a method frequently used when accountancy firms are considering redundancies.
Liability: Money or goods owed by a company. Also a first-year audit trainee.
Prudence: A fundamental accounting principle, designed to lend dignity to inaccuracy.
Reconciliation: The art of proving that one inaccurate figure exactly agrees with another inaccurate figure.

Taken from 'The Bluffer's Guide to Accountancy'


NB: This is the 600th item to be published on this blog. Who'd have thought it?!