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Decoding CPA-Speak: Clarifying 9 Common Terms
I’m here today to help translate from CPA-speak to regular person English, sometimes known as layman English.
How many of you have met with your bookkeeper or your CPA and honestly it’s like they’re speaking Greek and like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I’m here today to make CPA and bookkeeping-speak a little bit easier for you. And I’m also here to remind our friendly, much-beloved bookkeepers and CPAs just how foreign this whole language is to your everyday business owner who is super busy with their graphic design clients, who has a full plate already writing content for social media posts. Who already can’t quite get their handle on when is the next time, who is the next person they should hire. Much less try and wrap their brains around an entirely new way of speaking about numbers and new ways of showing and displaying finances.
What I want our bookkeepers and CPA listeners to get is, “Oh yeah, this stuff is super foreign to them I really need this not just to simply it but talk to them in terms that sound familiar to them rather than the ones I’m used to.”
What I have today are 9 terms that CPAs and bookkeepers use all the time, that the rest of us nod and go, “What?!”
- Profit and Loss
- Gross
- Net
- Balance Sheet
- Chart of Accounts
- Accounts Payable
- Accounts Receivable
- Cash or Accrual
- Owner’s Draw
I want these terms to be less foreign to you. I want you to have some kind of imagery that you can use to help you remember what these terms mean. So that you’re less intimidated by your numbers and financials, so that you’re more confident, so that you can start to use them and be savvy with them.
So that you can ask yourself, “What do I need to know about these numbers? How can I find what I’m looking for? How can these numbers help me be smarter in running my business?”
For your reference, I’ve created a cheat sheet of these terms plus further explanation. I also include some tips about which Profit and Loss reports I think are handy to look at every month and what you’re looking for in each one of them. It also includes references to previous episodes about money.
Ladies, what were your key takeaways in this episode? Come share in the She Thinks Big Facebook group.
Are you interested in the PDF related to this episode? Simply email me with an obvious subject title like, “Please email me the PDF related to episode XXX” and I will happily email it to you.
Previous Money-related Episodes:
009 Shame, Money Mindset, and Your Profit and Loss
019 Stop Magical Thinking: The Math Needs to Add Up
026 Simple Financials and KPIs for Your Business with Virtual CFO Hannah Smolinski
