| Accrual basis | Income counts when invoiced, costs when billed — whether or not money has moved |
| Accumulated depreciation | The depreciation charged on assets so far, shown as a deduction from their cost |
| Approve | Give a draft document its number and post it |
| Balance Sheet | What the company owns, owes and is worth to its owners, at one date |
| Cash basis | Only money actually received or paid counts |
| Chart of Accounts | The list of accounts every amount is recorded in |
| Compound entry | An entry with more than one debit or more than one credit — one payment split over several accounts |
| Contra account | An account that reduces another — accumulated depreciation reduces fixed assets |
| Contra entry | Money moved between two of the company's own bank, cash or card accounts; a transfer, not income or an expense |
| Control account | An account the product keeps, because a sub-list must add up to it (receivables, payables, VAT) |
| Cost of sales | The direct cost of what was sold; revenue less this is gross profit |
| Credit / Debit | The two sides of every entry. See The accounting you need |
| Date of supply | The day goods or services were actually supplied, printed on a tax invoice when it is not the invoice date |
| Delivery order | The paper that goes with goods to a customer — what, where and to whom, with no prices — and that they sign for |
| Depreciation | The share of an asset's cost charged as an expense each period of its useful life |
| Draft | Saved but not posted; in no report |
| Equity | What belongs to the owners: capital put in plus profits kept |
| Financial year | The twelve months the accounts cover, starting in the month set at creation |
| Gratuity | End-of-service benefit for expatriate employees under Article 51 |
| GPSSA | The UAE General Pension and Social Security Authority, for UAE and GCC nationals |
| GRN | Goods received note: what arrived from a supplier against a supplier LPO, line by line |
| Gross profit | Revenue less cost of sales |
| Input VAT | VAT suppliers charged you, which you can usually recover |
| Journal | An entry in the ledger: lines whose debits equal their credits |
| Ledger | The record of every entry, by account |
| Lock date | The date on or before which nothing more may be posted |
| LPO | Local purchase order: the order a buyer sends. A customer's LPO confirms an order to you; a supplier LPO is yours to a supplier |
| Net book value (NBV) | An asset's cost less its accumulated depreciation |
| Opening Balance Equity | Where the balancing difference from opening balances is held until cleared |
| Output VAT | VAT you charged customers, owed to the FTA |
| Period | A month within the financial year that entries are posted into |
| Post | Write an entry to the ledger permanently |
| Post-dated cheque (PDC) | A cheque dated for later. A promise, not money: it is kept in Post-dated Cheques and becomes a receipt only when the bank clears it |
| Reconciliation | Matching the bank's statement to the books line by line |
| Residual value | What an asset will be worth at the end of its life; depreciation stops there |
| Reverse charge | VAT the buyer accounts for instead of the supplier, typically on services from abroad |
| Reversal | An entry that cancels another exactly; how posted mistakes are corrected |
| Trial Balance | Every account's balance at a date; debits must equal credits |
| Useful life | How long an asset is expected to be used, over which it is depreciated |
| Void | Cancel an approved document by reversing its entry, keeping its number |
| WPS / SIF | The UAE Wage Protection System and the salary information file sent to the bank |
