Many of the accounting principles on this website apply to any type of company. In this series of articles, we focus on the basics of accounting for partnerships, a business entity formed by two or more owners that is less structured than a corporation.

The process of tracking production costs is critical for the information needs and reporting requirements of manufacturers. In this article, we’ll discuss a method of cost distribution called job costing. After describing the theory behind job costing, we’ll walk through an example - a manufacturer of drag race engines.

Financial management is a risky business - predictions of future performance are prone to the effects of an ever-changing economic environment. Discounting predicted cash flows is one method a financial manager can use to account for the risks associated with forecasting performance.

Most businesses have bank accounts. A number of situations can take place in relation to such accounts. For example, a company may have written checks in excess of a bank balance. Or a company may have a zero balance account and any checks that clear the company’s bank account are financed by a revolving line of credit. How should these transactions be recorded on the balance sheet? What about the statement of cash flows? In this article you will find answers to these questions.

Quite often rent agreements classified as operating leases include uneven rent payment terms (e.g., escalating rent payments or rent holidays). For example, a 5-year building rent agreement may specify that rents will go up 5% every year after the first year. Some companies assume that the rent expense should be recognized based on the rent payments. However, under US GAAP this most probably won’t be true. In this article, we review accounting for lease agreements with uneven rent payments.

Leasehold improvements represent additions to a lease property. Accounting for such improvements normally does not present a significant issue except for their amortization. This article covers a common issue which relates to the amortization of leasehold improvements.

Companies may build (construct) some of their fixed assets because such assets may not be available for purchase from other companies or because it is cheaper to do so. An important aspect of constructing own assets from the accounting standpoint is the cost accumulation. In this article we will discuss which expenditures should be included in the cost of self-constructed assets (interest capitalization is not covered in this article).

Income taxes are usually a significant expense of a company. For example, many corporations pay income taxes in 30-40% range. In this article, we will discuss a basic concept that applies to the payment of federal, state, or local income taxes. We will limit our discussion to taxes paid by corporations. We will not cover, in this article, temporary differences and the allocation of income taxes between financial statement periods. These topics will be discussed in later articles.

Consignment inventory is one of the marketing methods used to attract customers. One variation of consignment is when a seller delivers goods to a customer (buyer) but retains the title to the goods until the buyer uses the goods. In this article we explore accounting for this type of consignment arrangement.

Record keeping is essential for operating a business. Record keeping can be manual or computer-based. Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. In either case, cost of record keeping is usually high.