Glossary

Business words, in plain English

Every term the lessons use, in one place. Owners use these words every day; now you can too. In a lesson they sit under “Words to know” on each ticket: open one for its meaning.

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86 (eighty-six): Kitchen slang for taking a dish off the menu for now, usually because it ran out.

A

A lawyer's one-time read: Paying a lawyer to read one document, such as a lease, and tell you what you'd be promising and what to ask to change, before you sign. You don't hire them for anything else.
A, B and lube technicians: Shop names for technicians by skill, not licenses. A lube technician does oil changes, tires and inspections; a B-technician also does steady repairs like brakes; an A-technician can do anything, including finding hard problems.
A/B test: A test where people are split at random into two groups that see two versions, A and B, that differ in one thing. The version that brings more buyers wins, if the gap is bigger than luck.
ABC test: California's test for whether a worker is an employee. The business has to show all three: the worker is free from its control, does work outside its usual business, and runs an independent trade of their own. If any one fails, the worker is an employee.; Source: California Labor and Workforce Development Agency · 2026
Accelerator: A higher commission rate on sales above the quota, so each extra sale pays the salesperson more than the ones before it.
Access (to data): What a person's work account lets them open, change or delete: which apps, folders and records. IT gives it and takes it away; the team that owns the data says who should have it.
Account executive: The salesperson who runs a deal from the first meeting to the signed order: showing the product, sending the price and closing the sale.
Account manager: The salesperson who looks after customers after the first sale, keeps them happy and sells them their next orders.
Account minimum: The least money a firm asks a client to bring before it takes them on. It's written in the firm's brochure, along with any chance it may be waived.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026
Account suspension: A platform switching off a seller's shop or account: no new orders and no new listings until it's reinstated. Payouts can be held while it lasts.; Source: Etsy Help Center · 2026
Accounts payable: Bills a business has received but not paid yet, mostly to its suppliers.
Accounts payable: The team or person at your client who pays the bills. Your invoice usually has to get through them, not just the person who hired you.
Accounts receivable: Money customers owe you for work you've already done and billed, but that hasn't arrived yet.
Accrual accounting: Counting a sale when it's earned and a cost when it's used, whatever day the money moves. The other way, the cash method, counts money when it actually comes in or goes out.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2024
Acquirer (the shop's bank): The bank or payment company that signs up a shop to take cards and puts the money from card sales into the shop's account.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Register) · 2023
Activist investor: An investor, often a fund, that buys a stake in a public company and then pushes in public for changes: a new plan, seats on the board, sometimes a new CEO. The other shareholders decide in their votes.
Ad rate per thousand views: What an app is paid for every thousand times an ad is shown in it. Ad networks call it eCPM. It changes with the country, the kind of ad and the season.
Additional insured: A business named on someone else's insurance policy, so that policy also protects it. A gym asks contract trainers to name it on theirs.
Additional insured: Someone else, like your landlord, named on your liability policy so it protects them too when a claim comes from your business. A lease can ask for it.
Additional Medicare Tax: An extra Medicare tax on earnings above a set line, which depends on how you file. It's worked out on its own form, Form 8959.
Adjusted basis: What a property cost you for tax purposes, after changes: the price and buying costs, plus improvements, minus the depreciation you took or could have taken. The gain when you sell is the price minus this.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Administrative fine: A fine a state board sets for breaking its rules, without going to court. Each violation has its own amount, often higher for a second or third time.
Adverse action notice: The notice a landlord must give when a screening report played any part in saying no, or in asking for a co-signer, a bigger deposit or higher rent. It names the company that made the report and tells the applicant they can get a free copy and dispute it.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2023
Advisory contract: The written agreement between an investment adviser and a client: the services, the fee and how it's worked out, how either side can end it, and what happens to fees paid in advance. Many states and the federal law say what it must include.; Source: Washington State Legislature · 2026
Advisory fee: What a client pays an advisor for advice and for managing their investments, often a yearly share of the money in the account, billed each quarter.; Source: LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (filed with the SEC) · 2025
AED (automated external defibrillator): A portable machine that checks the heart of someone who has collapsed and, if needed, gives an electric shock to restart a normal beat. It talks the user through each step.; Source: U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration · 2026
Agency channel: Selling insurance through independent agents and brokers: local businesses that sell policies from several insurers and earn a commission on each sale. The insurer still sets the prices and pays the claims.; Source: The Progressive Corporation (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Air freight: Sending goods by plane instead of by ship or truck: days instead of weeks, at a much higher cost for each pound carried.
Aircraft dispatcher: The person in an airline's operations center who plans each flight with the captain (route, fuel, weather), signs its dispatch release with the captain, and watches it in the air. The job needs an FAA certificate.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 2026
Airline transport pilot certificate: The highest FAA pilot certificate. Both pilots on a US airline flight need one.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 2026
Allowance (in a contract): An amount set aside in a construction contract for something the client chooses later, like tile or light fixtures. If the client picks something that costs more, the difference is added by a change order.
Alphabet-level activities: Costs Alphabet keeps at the top instead of charging them to Google Services, Google Cloud or Other Bets: mainly the shared AI research behind its general AI models, plus some finance, HR and legal costs, certain fines and settlements, and giving to charity.; Source: Alphabet Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Amortization: Spreading the cost of something that lasts, like a TV series, over the months it's used instead of counting it all on the day it's paid for.
Annual Filing Season Program: A voluntary IRS program for paid preparers who aren't CPAs, enrolled agents or attorneys: a set number of course hours each year, including a refresher course with a test. It lets them speak for clients to the IRS only about returns they prepared and signed, and not in appeals or collection.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Annual recurring revenue (ARR): Monthly recurring revenue times twelve: what your subscriptions would bring in over a year if nothing changed.
Annualized income installment method: A way to work out estimated tax payments from the income you've actually earned so far in the year, for people whose income comes unevenly. It's filed on Form 2210, Schedule AI.
Answer (in a lawsuit): The defendant's written reply to a complaint, due by a deadline the court's rules set.
Antitrust immunity: Permission from the US Department of Transportation for airlines in a joint venture to plan prices and schedules together, which rival companies otherwise may not do. It can be taken back.
Antitrust law: The laws that protect competition: they stop rivals from fixing prices together and let the government block mergers that would leave buyers with too few choices.
App Review: Apple's check of every new app and every update before it goes on the App Store. A reviewer tries the app against Apple's written guidelines and approves it or sends it back with the reason.; Source: Apple Developer · 2026
App store fee: The cut Apple or Google keeps from a purchase made inside an app, much bigger than a card fee. Apple calls it a commission; Google, a service fee.
Appointment (insurance): An insurer's notice to the state that a licensed agent may sell its policies. Captive agents have one insurer's appointment; independent agents need one from each insurer they sell for. Not every state uses appointments.; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2023
Appraisal: A professional's estimate of what a property is worth, ordered by the lender. The lender lends on the lower of the price and the appraisal, so a low one means more cash or a lower price.
Articles of Organization: The short form you file with your state to create an LLC. Once the state accepts it, the LLC exists. A corporation files articles of incorporation instead.
As-built drawings: The drawings marked up to show how the building was really built, where pipes, wires and ducts ended up. The owner gets them at hand-over, for repairs later.
Asset protection: A store's team for stopping theft and keeping people safe. It reports to the store manager, not to any one department, because it watches all of them.
Asset purchase: Buying a business's equipment, customers, name and goodwill rather than the company itself, so its past debts and problems usually stay with the seller. Many small business sales are done this way.
Assets: Everything a business owns that's worth something: cash, money customers still owe it, stock on the shelves, equipment, buildings.
Assets under management: All the clients' money an advisor manages and charges a fee on. Advisors paid a percent of assets earn more when this grows, from new clients or from rising markets, and less when it shrinks.
Assigning a lease: Handing your whole lease to someone else, for example the person who buys your business. Subleasing is renting part or all of the space to someone while you stay the tenant. Many leases say whether you need the landlord's OK for either.
At-will job: A job either side can end at any time, for any reason or none, but never for an illegal reason such as discrimination or retaliation. Montana is the one state where, after a probation period, a firing needs a good reason.; Source: Montana Legislature
Attach rate: How often an order includes something extra, like a pastry or a sandwich with a drink. A higher attach rate makes the average order bigger.
Attribution: Deciding which ad or channel gets the credit for a sale. Often the last thing a customer clicked gets all of it, even if something else made them want to buy.
Audit: A careful check of a company's records by someone who didn't keep them. Outside auditors are an independent accounting firm that gives an opinion on the yearly reports; internal auditors work for the company itself.
Authorization: The customer's OK for the work and its price. For any work added after the estimate, a shop calls first, and in many states writes down who said yes, and when.
Authorized shares: The most shares a corporation is allowed to issue, written in its certificate of incorporation. It issues only some of them at first and keeps the rest for later investors and employees.; Source: State of Delaware · 2026
Available seat mile: One seat flown one mile, filled or empty. Airlines measure their size in seat miles and divide revenue and costs by them to compare.
Average daily rate (ADR): What a hotel's sold rooms brought in per night on average: room revenue divided by the rooms sold.
Average order (average ticket): What one order comes to on average: sales divided by transactions. It rises with prices and with what people add to their order. Chains' reports call it the average ticket or average check.
Average revenue per membership: A subscription company's revenue in a month divided by its paying memberships: what each one brings in, on average. Netflix calls it ARM.
Average speed of answer: On a phone line, how long callers waited on average before a person answered. How it's counted matters: some lines count a caller who chose a callback as no wait at all.
Average tax rate: All the income tax you pay divided by your income. It's never higher than, and usually lower than, your top bracket's rate, because the first dollars are taxed at lower rates.
Average ticket: What a customer spends on one order, on average: the average bill. Here a ticket means an order, not a step of this lesson.
Average unit volume (AUV): A typical shop's yearly sales. Chains report it so you can compare one location with another.; Source: Dutch Bros Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025

B

Back of house: The kitchen and the rooms behind it, and the people who work there: line cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers.
Backbar: The products a salon uses on clients in the chair, like shampoo, color and styling products, as opposed to the products it sells to take home.
Background check: A report on a candidate's past, such as criminal records or work history. When the report is bought from a background-check company, federal law requires the candidate's written permission first.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2014
Backlog: Work you've signed but haven't done yet. A growing backlog is good news only if you have the people to run it.
Backlog: Work a firm has won but not yet done or billed: the revenue it expects from contracts already signed.
Bad debt: Money a customer owes you that you don't expect to collect. Companies set money aside for it in their accounts, and it comes off their profit.
Balance sheet: A report of one day: everything a business owns, everything it owes, and what's left for its owners. It always balances: what you own equals what you owe plus the owners' stake.
Bank holding company: A company that owns a bank. The Federal Reserve supervises bank holding companies, so it watches the whole group, while the bank inside it has its own supervisor.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026
Bank reconciliation: Matching your own records of cash against the bank's statement, and explaining every difference, such as a deposit the bank hasn't counted yet or a fee you didn't record. The IRS tells businesses to do it every month.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2024
Bank run: When many depositors try to take their money out of a bank at once, usually because they fear it's in trouble. No bank keeps all its deposits in cash, so a big enough run can sink one.
Barrier to entry: Whatever makes it hard to start a business of the same kind: big costs, licenses, special skills or a hard-to-get location. Low barriers mean rivals can open easily.
Batch: A set of items made or bought at once. Bigger batches usually cost less per item, because setup costs are shared, but they tie up more cash.
Bay: One space in a repair shop where a car is worked on, often with a lift that raises the car. A shop's bays cost the same whether a car is in them or not.
Benchmark plan: The second-cheapest silver plan on a health insurance marketplace for where you live.; Source: KFF · 2027
Benefits: What an employer pays for a worker on top of pay for the hours worked: paid time off, health insurance, retirement savings and payroll taxes the law requires.
Best value: Choosing a supplier on quality, delivery and price together, not on price alone. Some public buyers may use it instead of taking the lowest bid.; Source: New York State Senate (Consolidated Laws of New York) · 2026
Bid: The price a contractor offers to do a job for, before the work starts. Often several contractors bid on the same job, and the client picks one.
Bid bond: A bond sent in with a bid that promises the contractor will sign the contract, and give the performance and payment bonds, if it wins. If it backs out, the owner can collect.; Source: General Services Administration (Acquisition.gov) · 2026
Bill of lading: The paper a carrier gives when it takes goods: who sent them, who gets them, from where to where, how many packages, what they are and what they weigh. The driver's signature says the count was right.
Bill of materials: The list of every material and part, and how much of each, needed to make a product. Purchasing buys from it.
Bill rate: What a firm charges a client for one hour of a person's time.
Billable hours: Hours of work a client pays for. Training, meetings and winning new clients are work too, but nobody is billed for them.
Bin: One labeled spot on a warehouse shelf. Every product has its bin, so pickers know where to find it and returns go back to the same place.
Bind (coverage): To put a policy in force: the moment the client's coverage starts, once the client says yes and the insurer, or an agent allowed to act for it, accepts.
Blended cost to win a customer: All the money spent on marketing and sales, divided by all the new customers, including the ones who came for free by word of mouth.
Blocklist (passwords): A list of passwords that are too common, too easy to guess or already leaked online. A good sign-in system refuses any new password that's on it.; Source: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) · 2025
Board inspection: A visit by an inspector from the state's barbering and cosmetology board to check licenses, disinfection and cleanliness. Problems found can lead to fines.
Board of directors: A small group elected by the shareholders to watch over the company for them. The board hires and can fire the CEO, sets the CEO's pay and signs off on the biggest decisions.
Bond: A loan you can buy and sell. The borrower, such as a government or a company, pays a fixed amount of interest each year and pays the full amount back on a set date.
Book hours: The time a labor guide says a repair should take. Many shops bill a job by its book hours, however long it really takes: finish faster and the shop gains, run over and the shop loses.
Book of business: All the clients a professional looks after and earns from, like an insurance agent's policyholders or a financial advisor's clients. It is often the most valuable thing the business owns, and it can be sold.
Book of business: A stylist's own list of clients who book with them. For a booth renter it is the whole business, and many of those clients follow the stylist if they move.
Book value: What the owners' stake is worth on the balance sheet: everything the company owns minus everything it owes, at the values in its books.
Book-to-bill: New work won in a period divided by the work billed in that period. Above one, the firm is winning work faster than it's doing it; below one, its future work is shrinking.
Booking deposit: Money a client pays, or a card they leave on file, when they book. It comes off the bill when they come, and the salon may keep it if they don't.
Bookkeeping: Recording every dollar a business takes in and pays out, sorted into categories, so its reports and tax returns start from the right numbers. Accountants check those records and turn them into reports.
Booth rent: What a booth renter pays the salon owner for the chair, usually every week, however many clients come that week.
Booth rental: Renting a chair or station in someone else's salon to run your own business there: you bring your clients, set your prices and keep what they pay, and the salon owner gets a fixed rent.
Bottleneck: The slowest station in a line of work. Every job waits on it, so it sets the pace for the whole order.
Brand: A name and what people expect when they see it: the quality, the price, the feeling. A brand is built by keeping the same promise again and again.
Breach notice law: A state law that says who must be told when personal information is stolen, and how fast. Every state has one, and the rules differ.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2023
Break-even hours: How many hours a hire has to bill in a year before what clients pay for them covers everything they cost you.
Break-even point: How much you need to sell to cover all your costs, so you make no profit and no loss. Fixed costs divided by what each sale contributes.
Break-even ROAS: The lowest return on ad spend where the ads pay for themselves: the order divided by what the order leaves you before the ad. Below it, each order the ads bring loses money.
Break-fix: IT work paid for each repair, usually by the hour: the client calls when something breaks, and pays for the time it takes to fix it.
Breakage: The part of gift-card and app balances a business expects nobody will ever spend. It's counted as revenue little by little, in step with the balances that do get spent.
Brochure (Form ADV Part 2A): A plain-English description of an adviser firm: its services, fees, conflicts, discipline and the clients it takes, including any minimum account. A client gets it before or when they sign.; Source: Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (the Code of Federal Regulations as published) · 2026
Broker-dealer: A firm that buys and sells stocks and bonds, for its customers or for itself. The SEC oversees broker-dealers.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) · 2026
BSA officer: The person at a bank in charge of following the Bank Secrecy Act, the federal law on reporting cash and suspicious money movements. At a small bank, often also the compliance officer, who makes sure the bank follows the rules.
Budget: A company's written plan for a coming year: how much it expects to sell and spend, month by month. It's set once, before the year starts, and the year's results are measured against it.
Bug report: A tester's write-up of one problem: what happened, on which device and version, how bad it is, and the exact steps that make it happen again.
Build: One working version of the game, put together from everyone's latest work so it can be played and tested. Teams make new builds often, sometimes several a day.
Build-out: Turning an empty space into a gym: walls, floors, showers and changing rooms, power, air conditioning, lighting and anything the equipment needs. Usually the biggest cost of opening.
Build-out: Turning an empty or old space into your restaurant: the kitchen, plumbing, hood, dining room and restrooms.
Build-out allowance: Money a landlord puts toward building out your space, in return for you signing the lease. Also called a tenant improvement (TI) allowance. A bigger allowance usually comes with a longer lease or a higher rent.
Build-out allowance: Money a landlord puts toward building out the space for a new tenant, also called a tenant improvement allowance. The tenant usually pays it back through the rent.
Building permit: Permission from your city or county to do construction work, issued once your plans are approved.
Burn rate: How fast a company that's losing money spends its cash, usually per month. Founders often just say "burn".
Business associate agreement: The written contract a doctor, dentist or other health care provider must sign with a business that handles its patients' records for it, like an IT firm, under the federal health privacy rules (HIPAA).; Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations) · 2026
Business email compromise: A scam that uses a fake or taken-over email account to get someone at a business to send money to a crook, often by "changing" a supplier's bank details or asking for an urgent wire transfer.; Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation · 2025
Business interruption insurance: Insurance that pays the profit you lose, and bills like payroll and rent, while a covered accident such as a fire keeps you closed.
Business model: How a business makes money: who pays it, for what, how often, and what it costs to serve one more customer.
Business owner's policy (BOP): One policy that bundles the coverage most small businesses need: property and general liability. Extras such as business interruption can be added to it.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Business unit: A part of a big company that runs one line of business or one region on its own, with its own boss, its own customers and its own sales and costs.
Buyback right: The company's right, written in a founder stock agreement, to buy back a departing founder's unvested shares, usually at the price the founder paid.
Buying committee: The group of people at a big customer who each have a say in a purchase: the people who will use it, the purchasing office, the budget holders and sometimes lawyers.

C

CAC payback: How many months new customers take to earn back what they cost to win, counting only what's left after the costs of serving them (the gross margin).
Canary release: Sending a software update to a small group of computers first and watching for trouble before sending it to everyone. Named after the canaries miners once carried to warn of bad air.; Source: CrowdStrike · 2024
Cancel for convenience: A contract clause that lets the client end the work at any time, for any reason, usually with some notice. Many big clients insist on one.
Cancellation lag: The weeks between a member's last visit and the day they cancel, when they still pay but no longer come.; Source: Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier · 2006
Cancellation policy: A salon's written rule for no-shows and late cancellations, such as a fee or a lost deposit. It only works if clients see it before they book.
Cap rate: Short for capitalization rate: a property's net operating income for a year as a share of its price or value. It says what the property earns before any loan, so two buildings can be compared whoever owns them and however they're paid for.; Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau · 2024
Capacity: How much a shop or factory can make in a given time with the machines and people it has. Hours already booked can't be sold twice.
Capacity utilization: How much of its capacity a factory is actually using, as a share. A plant at three-quarters has some room; one near full has to turn work away or add shifts.
Capital gain: What you make when you sell something you own, like a property or a share, for more than its adjusted basis. Gains on things held more than a year are taxed at lower rates than pay.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Capital reserve: Money a rental owner sets aside, month by month, for big parts that wear out, like a roof, a water heater or a furnace, so the bill is already saved when it comes. It's not a cushion for slow months: it's for replacing things.
Capital spending: Money spent on things that last for years, like buildings, equipment and data centers, rather than on this month's costs. Also called capital expenditures, or capex.
Captive agent: An insurance agent who sells only one insurer's policies, under that insurer's brand and pay plan. Also called an exclusive agent.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Card issuer: The bank that gives you a card and pays the shop for what you buy, like Chase for a Chase card. It earns the interchange fee.
Card network: The company whose name is on the card, such as Visa or Mastercard. It carries each payment between the shop's bank and your bank and sets the interchange fees.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Register) · 2023
Card processing fee: The slice of each card sale that goes to the bank that issued the card, the card network and the company that runs your card reader.
Carrier cutoff: The time the delivery company picks up the day's boxes. Orders packed before it leave today; the rest leave tomorrow.
Carrier scan: Each time the delivery company scans a box's label: at pickup, at each hub, out for delivery and delivered. The scans make the tracking history.
Cash buffer days: How many days of a business's usual spending its cash could pay for if no money came in at all: the cash divided by what goes out each day.; Source: JPMorgan Chase Institute · 2015
Cash conversion cycle: How long cash is tied up between paying for materials and being paid by the customer: days the stock sits, plus days customers take to pay, minus days you take to pay your suppliers.
Cash drawer: The locked drawer of cash one teller is responsible for during a shift. At the end of the day the teller counts it and balances it against the day's deposits and withdrawals.
Cash flow: Money coming into the bank minus money going out over a period. It can be negative in a month with a profit, because profit counts work done and cash counts payments made.
Cash flow statement: A report of where cash came from and where it went over a month or a year, in three piles: from running the business, from buying or selling things that last, and from lenders and owners.
Cash gap: The time between paying for stock and getting paid for it. A shop can be profitable and still run short of cash in that gap.
Cash method: Keeping books by counting income when the money comes in and costs when you pay them. Many small businesses start this way; the other way is accrual accounting.
Cash transaction report: The report a bank files with the federal government when one person deposits, withdraws or exchanges more than a set amount of cash in one business day. Its official name is a currency transaction report.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rules) · 2026
Cash-on-cash return: The cash a rental leaves you in a year after the loan payments, as a share of the cash you put in to buy it (down payment, closing costs and anything else paid up front).
Catastrophe (in insurance): One event, such as a hurricane, a hail storm or a wildfire, that damages many insured homes or cars at the same time. Insurers count these losses apart from everyday claims.
Catastrophe bond: A bond sold to investors that pays them interest, but if a big enough disaster hits, they lose some or all of their money and it goes to the insurer to pay claims.
Catch-up bookkeeping: Doing the books for past months a business fell behind on. It's usually priced once, on its own, before a monthly fee starts.
Cease-and-desist letter: A letter, often from a lawyer, telling someone to stop doing something (such as copying your brand) or face a lawsuit.
CEO: Chief executive officer: the person in charge of running the whole company day to day. The CEO answers to the board of directors.
Certificate of insurance: A one-page proof from an insurer that a business has a policy, what kind, its limits and its dates. Clients ask contractors for one, and contractors ask it of every sub.
Certificate of occupancy: The building department's sign-off that a space is safe to use for its purpose, given after the final inspections. You can't open without it.; Source: NYC Business, City of New York
Certified food protection manager: A manager who passed an accredited food safety exam. The Food Code says the person in charge should be one.; Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration · 2026
Change order: A written change to a signed contract: the extra work (or the work taken out), what it adds to or takes off the price, and how it changes the schedule. Signed by both sides before the work.
Change-order log: A list of every change on a job: what it was, its price, the extra days, and whether the client has signed. It keeps extras from slipping by without a price.
Channel Development: Starbucks' name for the part of its business that sells coffee outside its own stores: bags, pods and bottled drinks in supermarkets and other shops, mostly through partners like Nestlé and PepsiCo.
Chapter 11: The part of US bankruptcy law that lets a company keep running while it reorganizes its debts and contracts under a court's watch. The plan needs creditors' votes and the court's approval.
Charge-off: A loan a bank gives up on collecting and writes off as a loss. Net charge-offs are the loans written off minus anything later recovered.
Chargeback: A deduction a store takes from what it pays a supplier, for breaking the store's rules: a late or incomplete shipment, a wrong label, a missing electronic notice.
Chargeback: When a buyer asks their bank to reverse a card payment instead of asking the shop. The bank takes the money back while it decides, and the payment company charges the shop a fee.; Source: Shopify Help Center · 2026
Chargeback (insurance commission): When an insurer takes back part of a commission it already paid an agent, usually because the client cancelled the policy before its term ended.; Source: Goosehead Insurance, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Cheap test: A small, low-cost way to find out whether people will buy before you commit: a market stall, a pop-up, a few paid orders. If nobody buys, you've lost a weekend, not years.
Check average: Total sales divided by the number of guests (or orders): what a typical guest spends.
Checking a business before you buy: A buyer's careful look before signing: the tax returns and statements, the lease, contracts, licenses, equipment and staff, usually with a lawyer and an accountant. Often called due diligence.
Chief operating decision maker: Whoever a company names in its annual report as the person (or small group) who looks at each part of the business and decides where the money goes. Usually the CEO. A company's segments are the parts this person manages separately.
Children's Product Certificate: The certificate a children's product needs (one made mainly for children twelve or younger), based on tests by a laboratory the CPSC has accepted.
Churn: Members or subscribers who quit, usually counted as a share of all members each month. A business has to sign new ones just to replace them.
Churning: Trading in a client's account mostly so the salesperson earns commissions, not because it's good for the client. FINRA calls trading like this excessive trading, and churning when it's done to cheat the client or with reckless disregard for them.; Source: FINRA · 2026
Claim: A customer's request for the insurance company to pay for a loss the policy covers, like a car accident or a kitchen fire.
Claim (on a construction job): A request for more money where the client disputes the extra work, its price, or both. Claims can take months or years to settle.; Source: Tutor Perini Corporation (SEC EDGAR) · 2025
Claim frequency: How often claims happen, for example crashes per hundred cars insured in a year.
Claim severity: How much the average claim costs to settle.
Claims-made policy: Liability insurance that pays only if both the event and the claim are reported while the policy is in force. Let it lapse, and a claim about old work may not be covered.; Source: National Association of Insurance Commissioners · 2026
Class code: The category workers' comp puts each kind of work in, such as carpentry or office work. Each class has its own rate per $100 of payroll, because some work gets people hurt more often.
Clawback: Commission a salesperson gives back, or doesn't get, when the customer cancels or doesn't pay. The pay plan says when it applies.
Client concentration: How much of your revenue comes from your biggest client, or your few biggest. The higher it is, the more one lost client hurts.
Client records: Under the federal rules for people who practice before the IRS: the documents a client gave you or needs to meet their federal tax duties, like bank statements, tax forms and past returns. When the client asks, they must be returned promptly; you may keep copies.; Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations) · 2026
Cliff: A waiting period, often a year, before any shares or options vest. At the cliff, everything earned so far vests at once; after it, the rest vests month by month.
Close rate: The share of quotes an agency gives that turn into policies sold. Each agency tracks its own.
Closing costs: What a buyer pays on top of the price to finish a purchase: the lender's fees, the appraisal, title insurance, government taxes and fees, and taxes and insurance paid ahead.; Source: Freddie Mac · 2026
Closing Disclosure: A five-page form with a home loan's final terms and closing costs, which the lender must give at least three business days before closing on a loan the federal rules cover.; Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau · 2024
Closing the books: The finance team's job at the end of each month: record everything, put each sale and cost in the right month, match the records to the bank, then lock the month and send the reports. Also called the month-end close.
Cloud computing: Renting computers, storage and software over the internet instead of buying and running your own. The customer pays for what it uses, like a utility bill.
Co-branded credit card: A credit card with a company's name on it, issued by a bank or card company. Cardholders earn the company's points or miles, and the card company pays the company for them.
Co-signer: A second person who signs the lease and promises to pay the rent if the tenant doesn't.
COBRA: A federal law that lets workers keep their work health insurance for a while after the job ends, usually paying the whole premium themselves.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor
Code review: Before new code is added to the product, a second engineer reads it, asks questions and suggests fixes. It catches mistakes early and means at least two people understand every change.
Cohort: A group of players who started at the same time, such as everyone who installed in one week. Owners follow each cohort to see how many stay.
Cold chain: Keeping food cold at every step from the packer to the kitchen: cold warehouses, refrigerated trucks and the restaurant's walk-in cooler.
Collateral: Something valuable a borrower pledges to a lender, like equipment or a house, that the lender can take if the loan isn't paid.
Combined ratio: The loss ratio plus the expense ratio. Under 100 means the insurer kept something from its premiums after claims and costs; over 100 means insuring people lost money.
Comeback: A car that comes back to the shop because a repair didn't fix the problem or failed soon after. When the shop's work or part was at fault, it redoes the job without charging again.
Commission: A share of each sale that goes to whoever helped make it, like the cut a delivery app or a booking site keeps.
Commitment letter: The bank's written offer of a loan, with its amount, terms and conditions. The borrower signs it to accept before the loan papers are drawn up.
Committed cost: Money you've already agreed to spend, on a signed subcontract or an order, but haven't been billed for yet. It belongs in the job's numbers before the bill comes.
Comparable sales: Sales at stores that were already open a year earlier, compared with that year. Chains report it so new stores don't hide whether the old ones are growing. Also called same-store sales.; Source: Starbucks Corporation (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Comparable sales: Sales at stores that have been open for about a year or more, compared with the same stores a year before. New stores are left out, so the number shows whether the existing stores are getting busier. Comparable transactions counts the orders the same way.
Competent person (safety): Under federal safety rules, someone who can spot hazards on site, now or coming, and has the authority to fix them right away. Builders name one for the site inspections the rules require.; Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Competitive advantage: Something that lets a business keep its customers and its profits even when rivals try to copy it, like a great location, a trusted name or lower costs. A lasting one is often called a moat.
Competitor pricing: Setting a price by looking at what similar businesses nearby charge, and pricing a little under, at or over them.
Complaint: The paper that starts a lawsuit: who is suing whom, what happened, and what the person suing wants.
Concentration risk: The danger of relying on one customer, supplier or channel for most of your business. If that one changes its terms or goes away, most of your income goes with it.
Concern, cause, correction: The three parts of a repair order's story: what the customer said the car was doing, what the technician found was wrong, and what was done to fix it.
Conditional job offer: A job offer that holds only if something checks out first, such as a background check.
Conflict of interest: Anything that could pull an adviser's advice away from what's best for the client, like a commission on a product they recommend. An adviser has to tell the client about it, in writing, before advising.
Consent to use tax information: A client's signed and dated permission, given before the use, that lets a tax preparer use their return's information for something other than tax returns, such as offering bookkeeping. It can't be a condition of doing the return.; Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations) · 2026
Consumer Price Index (CPI): The government's measure of how prices change for a fixed basket of what households buy, from rent to eggs, each weighted by how much people spend on it. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes it every month.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Content assets: Shows and films a streaming company has paid for or owes for whose cost hasn't been counted yet. They sit on the balance sheet until they're amortized.
Content freeze: The day a team stops adding new things to an update. After it, only bug fixes go in, so the testers can test a version that stops changing.
Contingency (a buffer): Money added to an estimate for what you can't see yet, like rot behind old tile or a price rise before you buy. If nothing goes wrong, it becomes extra profit.
Contingent commission: A bonus an insurer pays an agency on top of its regular commissions, based on how profitable, large or fast-growing the business it placed with that insurer was.; Source: Goosehead Insurance, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Continuing education (CE): Classes a licensed agent must keep taking to renew the license, including some on ethics. Texas fines agents for each hour they're short.; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2026
Contract: A promise, or a set of promises, between two or more sides that the law will enforce. Usually an offer, a yes, and something of value going each way. Many are written down; some don't have to be.
Contract manufacturer: A factory that makes another company's product to that company's design or recipe, under the other company's brand. In food it's often called a co-packer.
Contract playbook: A legal team's written rules for a kind of deal: which terms it accepts, which it changes, and which need a senior lawyer's OK.
Contribution: What each sale leaves you after its own variable costs (like the food or product you sold and the card fee). It goes toward the fixed costs first; once those are covered, it's profit.
Controller: The manager who runs a company's accounting team: the records, the monthly close and the reports. The chief financial officer (CFO) is usually the controller's boss.
Conversion rate: The share of visitors who end up buying. If 3 of every 100 visitors buy, it's 3%.
Cooling-off period: A few days after signing when the buyer can cancel a contract for any reason. Many states set one for gym contracts.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2026
COPPA: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a US federal law enforced by the FTC. Apps and websites made for children under 13, or that know a user is under 13, must get a parent's consent before collecting the child's personal information.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2025
Copyright: The right to copy, share and show an original creative work, such as code, art, music, photos or video. It exists once the work is fixed in a lasting form (written, recorded, saved).; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Core charge: A deposit on a part that can be rebuilt, like an alternator or a car battery. The buyer pays it with the new part and gets it back when the old part is returned.
Core inflation: Inflation leaving out food and energy, whose prices jump around the most. It shows the slower, steadier trend underneath.
Corporation: A company that exists separately from its owners, who hold it through shares. A regular (C) corporation pays its own income tax.
Cosmetologist: A licensed beauty professional who cuts, colors and styles hair, and in many states also does skin and nail care. Every state requires a license.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Cost center: A part of a company that doesn't sell anything itself and is judged on how well it spends, like accounting or the legal team.
Cost of goods sold: What the things you sold cost you to make or buy: the food on the plate, the products on the shelf, the servers that deliver an app. Sales minus this is gross profit.
Cost of services: What it costs a firm to do its client work: mostly its people's pay and benefits, plus things like subcontractors and travel. What's left of revenue after it pays for rent, sales and running the firm.
Cost per click: What an advertiser pays each time someone clicks its ad, whether or not they buy anything.
Cost per install: What an app pays in ads for each new download: the ad money spent divided by the installs it brought. Often shortened to CPI.
Cost per seat mile: An airline's operating costs divided by its available seat miles: what it cost to fly one seat one mile, full or empty. Airlines call it CASM.
Cost per unit: What each one costs you, all in: the run's setup and run costs added up, divided by how many good ones you made.
Cost-plus contract: A deal where the client pays what the job actually costs, plus an agreed fee or percentage on top. Less risk for the contractor, so usually a smaller margin.
Cost-plus pricing: Setting a price by adding a cushion on top of what the thing costs you, like pricing a dish so food is about a third of the price. It sets the floor, not the ceiling.
Counter service: Guests order and pay at a counter and pick up their food. Also called quick service or limited service.
Coverage (debt service coverage): The cash a business has left each month before its loan payments, divided by all those payments. Above one, the cash covers them; lenders look for room above one, and each sets its own line.
Covers: Restaurant talk for guests served. A hundred covers means a hundred people ate with you.
CPA (certified public accountant): An accountant licensed by a state's board of accountancy after passing the CPA exam and meeting the state's education and experience rules. Only CPAs can sign audits and reviews of financial statements or use the title, and they may represent any client before the IRS.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Creator (influencer): Someone with many followers online whom a brand pays, or gives free products, to show or talk about what it sells.
Credit memo: The short report a credit analyst writes about a loan request: what the money is for, how it will be repaid, what backs it, the risks, and a recommendation.
Critical path: The chain of jobs in a project where each one has to wait for the one before. Its length sets how long the whole thing takes; speeding up a job off the chain doesn't help.
Cross-docking: Moving goods from an arriving truck straight to an outgoing one, without storing them in the warehouse.
Cross-training: Teaching people to do more than one job, so someone can step in when a person is out or quits.
Crunch: A stretch of weeks with long days and weekends before a deadline. Game developer surveys count it separately from ordinary long hours.
Cup cost: What everything in one drink costs you: the coffee, the milk, the syrup, and the cup, lid and sleeve. The coffee shop's version of a plate cost.
Cushion: A little extra on top of the budget for the costs you didn't think of. Every budget misses something.
Custody: Holding a client's money or investments, or being able to take money out of the client's account. Having fees taken straight from a client's account can count as custody, so read your state's custody rule.
Customer acquisition cost: What it costs, in ads and other marketing, to win one new customer. Often shortened to CAC.
Customer concentration: How much of your sales come from your biggest customers. The more one customer makes up, the more it can ask of you, and the harder it is to lose them.
Customer group: The particular people a business sells to, described closely enough to find and reach them: not everyone, but, say, dog owners within a short drive who want grooming without the trip.
Customer interview: A short conversation with someone who might buy, about a problem they had and what they did about it, not about your idea. What people did is evidence; what they say they'd do usually isn't.; Source: Y Combinator · 2019
Customer lifetime value: What a customer is worth to you over all the time they keep buying: the profit from every order or visit, not just the first. Owners compare it with what the customer cost to win.
Customs value: The amount the duty is figured on. In the US it's mainly the price paid to the seller abroad, not the cost of shipping the goods across the border.; Source: U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo) · 2023
Cyber insurance: Insurance for break-ins, data breaches and online fraud. It can pay your own costs (first-party cover) and other people's claims against you (third-party cover). Most property and general liability policies don't cover these.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2026
Cycle count: Counting a few items by hand every day, instead of the whole store at once, and fixing the computer's count wherever it's wrong.

D

D-U-N-S Number: A number Dun & Bradstreet gives a business to identify it. Apple and Google ask a company for one before it can sell apps under the company's name.; Source: Apple Developer · 2026
Daily active users: How many different people open an app or play a game on a given day, each counted once. Often shortened to DAU; companies report the average over a period.
Daily log: The superintendent's written record of each day on site: weather, crews and headcounts, deliveries, inspections, problems and photos. If there's a dispute later, it's the proof.
Day-1, day-7 and day-30 retention: Of the people who installed an app on the same day, the share who open it again one day, seven days or thirty days later.
Daypart: A stretch of the day owners track on its own, like the morning, midday, afternoon or evening. Each has its own customers, menu and sales.
Days late: How long after its due date an invoice is paid. Zero means on time.
Days of inventory: How many days the goods on hand would last at the usual rate of selling, counted at what they cost. More days means more cash sitting on shelves.
DBA (doing business as): A registered business name that isn't your own legal name or your company's official name. Most states require one if you use another name, but it doesn't protect the name by itself.
De minimis: Latin for "too small to matter". A rule that let low-value packages into the US without duty. It is suspended: small packages now pay duty too.; Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection · 2026
De minimis rule (advisers): A federal rule that stops a state from making an adviser register there while the adviser has no office in that state and fewer than six clients living there in the past year.; Source: U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo) · 2023
Dead stock: Items that aren't selling and probably won't, at least not at full price. You've already paid for them.
Deductible: The part of a covered loss you pay yourself before the insurance company pays the rest.
Default alive: Paul Graham's term for a startup that would reach profit on the cash it has, if its costs stayed the same and its growth kept its recent pace. If not, it's "default dead" and depends on raising more.; Source: Paul Graham · 2015
Default judgment: A court's decision against a side that didn't answer the lawsuit or take part, without hearing that side's story.
Default search: The search engine a browser or phone uses unless you change it. Being the default means the searches go to that company unless the person goes out of their way to switch.
Deferred revenue: Money a customer has paid for something the business hasn't delivered yet, like the rest of a yearly membership. It's counted as earned bit by bit.
Delegation of authority: A company's written list of who may approve what, and up to how much money. Above the CEO's limit, a decision goes to the board; below a leader's limit, the leader decides without asking.
Delivery Service Partner (DSP): A small, independently run delivery company that hires its own drivers to deliver Amazon packages, with Amazon's technology and support behind it. Amazon started the program in 2018.; Source: Amazon.com, Inc. (aboutamazon.com) · 2026
Demand: How much of something buyers want at each price. It rises when more people want it, like eggs before the holidays, and falls when fewer do.
Demand creation: Nike's name for what it spends to make people want its products: ads, digital marketing, events and store displays, plus paying athletes and teams.
Demurrage and detention: Daily fees a port or shipping line charges when a container stays at the terminal, or with the shipper, past its free days.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (National Archives) · 2026
Denied boarding (being bumped): When a flight is overbooked and a passenger with a ticket can't get on. Airlines must ask for volunteers first; a passenger bumped against their will in the US is owed money under federal rules.
Deposit (at a bank): Money a customer keeps at a bank, in a checking or savings account. The customer can take it back, and the bank uses it, in the meantime, to make loans and buy bonds.
Deposit (paid up front): Part of the price paid before work starts, so you're never owed for all of it.
Depot: Costco's name for a building that receives large shipments from suppliers and quickly sends the goods on to the warehouses instead of storing them. This way of moving goods is called cross-docking.
Depreciation: Spreading the cost of something that lasts, like an oven or a truck, over the years it's used. Each year's profit report gets a slice, even though the cash left the day it was bought.
Depreciation recapture: When you sell a rental at a gain, the part of the gain that comes from the depreciation you took is taxed at its own rate (at most 25 percent for a rental building). The IRS calls it unrecaptured section 1250 gain.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Design partner: An early customer who uses an unfinished product and helps decide what it should do, often in return for a lower price or early access.
Design patent: A patent on the new, ornamental look of a product, such as a shoe's shape, rather than on how it works.; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Designated responsible licensed producer: In Texas, the licensed officer or partner an agency names as answerable for following the state's insurance rules. An agency can't get its own license without one.; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2025
Developmental licensee: A company that runs McDonald's restaurants in a whole country or region and pays for everything itself, land and buildings included. It pays McDonald's a royalty and opening fees, but no rent.
Dilution: When a company sells new shares, each existing owner's slice gets smaller, even though they keep the same number of shares.
Dimensional weight: A weight a carrier works out from a box's size: length times width times height, divided by a number the carrier sets. UPS uses it to price a package that is large for its weight.; Source: UPS · 2026
Direct channel: Selling insurance straight to customers, online or by phone, with no agent in between.; Source: The Progressive Corporation (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Direct cost: What one job costs on its own: its materials, its crew hours, its subcontractors, its permit. If you didn't take the job, you wouldn't pay it.
Discovery: The stage of a lawsuit when each side must hand over documents, emails and answers to questions, sometimes under oath.
Discretion (discretionary authority): A client's permission for the adviser to buy and sell in the client's account without asking each time.
Dispatch: Handing out a shop's repair orders to its technicians, by who is allowed to do each job and who has time.
Dispatch release: The paper (or screen) that lets a flight go: the plane, the flight number, the airports, the alternate, the minimum fuel and the weather, signed by the captain and the dispatcher.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 2026
Distribution center: A big warehouse where goods arrive from makers in bulk and are sorted, stored and sent on to stores or straight to shoppers.
Dividend: A share of a corporation's profit paid out in cash to its owners.
Double tax: A corporation's profit is taxed once when the corporation earns it, and again when it's paid out to owners as dividends.
Down payment: The part of the price a buyer pays in cash; the loan covers the rest. Lenders set a smallest down payment, and it's bigger for a property you won't live in.
Downturn reserve: Cash a business keeps to pay its costs, and its owner, through a stretch when income falls, like a falling market for an advisor paid a percent of clients' accounts. It's kept for bad years, not for opening.
Draw (against commission): Money paid to a salesperson ahead of the commission they're expected to earn. The pay plan says whether it's paid back out of later commission.
Drive-thru: A lane where customers order and pick up from their cars. It needs a bigger lot but a much smaller building.
Drop-shipping: Selling items that a supplier ships straight from its own warehouse to your customer, so you never hold the stock.
Dry run: Doing the whole job from start to finish before opening, on friends or family, to find what breaks while it costs little.
Dual mandate: The two goals Congress gave the Federal Reserve: as many jobs as the economy can sustain, and stable prices. The Fed reads stable prices as inflation of about two percent a year.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026
Due diligence (Form 8867): The checks a paid preparer must make, and record on Form 8867, before claiming the earned income credit, the child tax credit, the American opportunity credit or head of household status for a client. Each failure carries its own penalty.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Duty of care and duty of loyalty: What a company's directors owe it. Care: make decisions informed, with the time and attention they need. Loyalty: put the company and its owners before their own interests.
Duty to report: The legal requirement to tell the safety agency quickly when you learn your product could seriously hurt someone or breaks a safety rule, even before anyone is hurt.
Dynamic pricing: Changing the price of the same thing as demand changes, by day, season or how early people buy. Common when the number of rooms or seats is fixed and an unsold one can never be sold later.

E

Early-cancellation fee: A fee a client agrees to pay if it ends the project early, so you're paid for the time you held for them.
Early-payment discount: A small price cut for paying an invoice early, offered with the normal due date: for example, a little off if paid within ten days, the full amount otherwise.
Earnout: Part of a business's price paid later, only if the business does as well as the deal says over the next few years. If clients leave, the seller gets less of it.; Source: Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) · 2024
EBITDA: Profit before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization: roughly what a business earns from running itself, before how it's paid for and taxed. Buyers of businesses often quote prices as a multiple of it.
Economic interest (in a captive book): What some captive agents own instead of their clients' policies: the right to the book's value, which they can sell only to a buyer the insurer approves, or give up for the insurer's termination payment.; Source: Court of Special Appeals of Maryland (via FindLaw) · 2005
Economic nexus: Enough sales into a state that the state can make an out-of-state seller collect its sales tax, even without a shop there.; Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Economies of scale: Costs per item that fall as a business gets bigger, for example because it buys in huge amounts and pays its suppliers less.
EEOC: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces the laws against discrimination at work. Workers file complaints with it, called charges.
Effective hourly rate: What a project really paid per hour: the fee divided by the hours it actually took.
EFIN (electronic filing identification number): The number the IRS gives a firm it has approved to file clients' returns electronically, after an application, a background check and, for people who aren't licensed, fingerprints.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
EIN (employer identification number): Your business's federal tax ID number, from the IRS. You need one to hire employees. It's free, and online it comes right away.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Email list: The people who chose to get your emails. Unlike followers on an app or buyers on a marketplace, it's yours to keep, as long as they signed up themselves.
Engaged time: Under California's Proposition 22, the time from when an app driver accepts a ride or delivery request to when they finish it. Time spent waiting for the next request isn't counted.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2020
Engagement letter: The agreement a bookkeeper or accountant signs with a client: the work included, the fee, what costs extra, what the client must send and how either side can end it.
Enrolled agent (EA): A tax professional licensed by the IRS itself, after a three-part exam and a background check. Enrolled agents may represent any taxpayer on any tax matter, in any state, and must keep up their training.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Enterprise value: What a whole business is worth to a buyer, counted as if it had no cash and no debt. The price paid for a share of it is then adjusted for the cash and debt it really has.
Equipment financing: Paying for machines over time with a loan or a lease instead of all at once. It turns one big cost into a monthly bill that comes due whether members come or not.
Equipment lease: Paying for a machine, like an espresso machine, monthly over a few years instead of buying it outright. It keeps cash free at the start, but the payments add up to more than the price.
Equity in a property: What a property is worth minus what's still owed on it: the part that's really yours. It grows when you pay down the loan and when the property's value rises.
Equity investment: Money put into a business in exchange for owning part of it. There's nothing to pay back; the investor shares in the profits and in what the business is worth.
Errors and omissions insurance (E&O): Insurance for people who sell professional services. It pays when a client says your mistake, or something you left out, cost them money, including the cost of defending you. Also called professional liability insurance.; Source: National Association of Insurance Commissioners · 2026
Errors and omissions insurance (E&O): Insurance an agency buys for its own mistakes, like failing to place coverage a client asked for. It pays claims above its deductible, up to its limit. Texas requires it, or a bond, for an agency license.; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2024
Escalation: Passing a support case up to someone with more say or more knowledge, such as a team lead or a specialist team, because the first person can't or may not decide it.
Establishment: One place where a business works: a single restaurant, shop or office. A chain with ten stores has ten establishments.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Establishment license: In California, the state board's license for the salon itself, as a place: the room, not the people. It's for one address and one owner.
Estimate: A contractor's worked-out guess at what a job will cost, line by line: materials, the crew's hours, subcontractors, permits and the rest. The bid is built on top of it.
Estimated tax: Tax paid during the year on income nobody withholds tax from, like a business owner's profit, usually in four payments.
Estimator: The person who works out what a job will cost before it's won, from the drawings and the subcontractors' prices, so the company can bid.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Excise tax: A federal tax on certain products or activities, like fuel, heavy trucks or air travel, rather than on income.
Exclusions: The part of a contract that lists what the price doesn't include, such as moving walls or fixing damage found behind them. Work on an exclusion is priced separately, by a change order.
Exclusive clause: A lease line that stops the landlord from renting another space in the same building or center to a business that sells what you sell.
Executive: One of the company's top managers, like the chief financial officer (CFO) or the head of a big business unit, who answers to the CEO.
Executive chef: The head of a restaurant's kitchen: owns the menu, the recipes, ordering and the kitchen team. Some cook less and manage more.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Exempt (from overtime): A job that doesn't get overtime pay under federal law. For the main white-collar exemptions, the job must pay a salary of at least a set amount a week, and its main work must be managing, professional or office work tied to running the business. A job title alone never makes a job exempt.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · 2019
Exercise price: The price per share written into a stock option: what the holder pays to buy each share. Also called the strike price.
Exhibit 21: A list attached to a company's Form 10-K that names its significant subsidiaries and where each one is set up.
Expansion revenue: More money from customers you already have, when they upgrade to a bigger plan or add people.
Expense ratio: What an insurer spends to sell policies and run the company (ads, agents' commissions, staff) as a share of the premiums it earned.
Experience mod: A multiplier on a business's workers' comp premium: its own claims compared with the claims expected for its size and trade. Above one means you pay more; below one, less. Small businesses often aren't rated yet.; Source: Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB)
Expirations: An insurance agency's records of its clients and when each policy comes up for renewal. Whoever owns them has the right to renew those clients, so they're what's really sold when a book of business changes hands.; Source: Independent Insurance Agents of Texas · 1985
Expo (expediter): The person at the end of a kitchen line who reads each order, tells the cooks when to start each dish, and checks every plate before it leaves the kitchen. Often the chef or the sous chef.
Extension (to file): More time to file a tax return, asked for by the deadline (Form 4868 for a person's federal return). It moves the filing date, not the payment date: tax owed is still due at the original deadline.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Extra member: A sub-account an account owner pays for so one person outside their home can watch. Netflix doesn't count extra members as paid memberships, but their fees are part of its revenue.

F

Fabricator: Under EPA's formaldehyde rule, a business that builds hardwood plywood, MDF or particleboard into finished goods, like cabinets. It must buy compliant panels, keep the proof and label what it makes.
Factoring: Selling your unpaid invoices to a finance company, which pays you most of the money now and collects from your customer later, for a fee.
Failed payment: A monthly charge that doesn't go through, often because a card expired or was replaced. If nobody follows up, the member is lost without ever deciding to quit.
Failure-to-deposit penalty: An IRS penalty on an employer whose payroll tax deposits are late or short: a share of the late amount that grows the later the deposit is.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Fair Housing Act: The federal law that bans discrimination in renting or selling a home because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status or disability. It covers who you choose, the terms you offer and what any ad says. Many states and cities add more.; Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development · 2026
Familial status: Under fair-housing law, having children under 18 living with you, or being pregnant or getting custody of a child. A landlord can't turn away, or advertise against, families with children.
Fare class: One step on the ladder of prices an airline sells for the same flight, with its own price, rules and number of seats. When a step's seats are sold, it closes and the next, higher price shows.
FDIC insurance: Federal insurance on bank deposits. If an insured bank fails, the FDIC pays depositors back up to a limit. Banks pay for it.; Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) · 2026
Feature flag: A switch in the code that turns a new feature on or off without shipping new code. Teams use it to turn a feature on for a few customers first, and to turn it off fast if something goes wrong.; Source: GitLab Inc. · 2026
Federal funds rate: The interest rate banks charge each other for overnight loans. The Federal Reserve sets a target range for it, and most other interest rates move with it.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026
Feedlot: A farm that buys young cattle and feeds them mostly grain for a few months, until they're heavy enough to sell to a meatpacker.; Source: USDA Economic Research Service · 2025
FICA: Social Security and Medicare taxes. The employer pays a share, and the same share comes out of the employee's pay.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
FICA tip credit: A federal tax credit for employers equal to the Social Security and Medicare tax they pay on employees' tips, above the tips needed to reach the federal minimum wage. Since 2025 it covers salons as well as restaurants.
Fiduciary duty: An adviser's duty to act in the client's best interest for the whole relationship: give advice that suits the client (the duty of care) and never put the adviser's own interest first, telling the client every conflict (the duty of loyalty).; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff · 2023
Filing season (tax season): The months when most people file their income tax returns: in the US, from late January, when the IRS starts taking returns, to the April deadline. Returns on extension follow until October.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Fire (in a kitchen): To start cooking a dish. Expo calls "fire" at the moment each dish has to start so a table's plates are ready together.
First reply time: How long a customer waits for the first answer from a person, counted from when their message arrives. A company often promises a limit, such as within a day.
First samples (first article): The first pieces a maker makes from new tooling or a new recipe, checked and approved by the customer before the full run starts.
First-contact resolution: The share of support requests fixed during the first call or chat, without passing them on or calling back.
First-party cover: The part of an insurance policy that pays your own losses, such as investigators, restoring data, telling customers and income lost while you're down.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2026
First-piece check: Measuring or testing the first piece of a run against the drawing or recipe before making the rest, so a wrong setup ruins one piece, not the whole run.
First-time penalty relief: IRS relief ("first-time abate") that can remove a penalty for filing, paying or depositing late, for a taxpayer whose record for the past three years is clean.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Fiscal year: The twelve months a company uses for its accounts. It doesn't have to match the calendar year: Costco's ends around the end of August.
Fixed cost: A cost that stays about the same however much you sell, like rent.
Fixed fee: One agreed price for a set list of work. If it takes longer than you planned, the extra hours are yours to absorb.
Fixed-price contract: A deal to do a job for an agreed price, whatever it ends up costing. If the costs run over, the contractor pays the difference, unless the client agrees to a change order.
Flagged hours: The book hours a flat-rate technician marks on the jobs they finished in a week. They're what the technician is paid for, and what the customer is billed for.
Flat-fee planning: Advice sold for a set price, by the year, by the plan or by the hour, whatever the client's accounts hold. The advisor's pay doesn't move with the market.
Flat-rate pay: Paying a repair technician for the book hours of each job they finish (the time a labor guide gives it), not for the hours on the clock. A fast technician earns more; a slow week or a job that runs over costs the technician.; Source: California Department of Industrial Relations · 2021
Float: Money an insurer holds between collecting premiums and paying claims. It belongs to future claims, but the insurer invests it and keeps the earnings in the meantime.
Floor drain (waste disposal well): A drain or sink in a service bay that runs to a septic tank, a dry well or the ground. The EPA treats it as a well that can poison ground water; new ones have been banned nationwide since 2000.; Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2026
FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee): The Federal Reserve's committee that sets its interest rate target. It meets eight times a year in Washington.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026
Food Code: The FDA's model rules for restaurant food safety. States and counties write their own rules from it, so the details vary by place.; Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration · 2026
Food cost %: What the ingredients in a dish cost, as a share of the dish's menu price.
Food dollar: USDA's way of splitting one dollar spent on food among the farms and every business after them.; Source: USDA Economic Research Service · 2024
Food handler card: A short food safety course certificate for kitchen and serving staff. Some states require one soon after a person is hired.
Food service permit: The health department's permit to run a restaurant, often called a health permit. You get it after a pre-opening inspection, and you renew it.; Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration · 2026
Forecast: The finance team's best guess, today, of where the year will end up. Unlike the budget, it's updated as the year goes on.
Forecast cost: What a job, or one line of it, will cost by the end if it carries on as it's going: what's spent so far plus what's still to come.
Foreign registration: Registering a company formed in one state to do business in another. A Delaware corporation that works from California is a "foreign" corporation in California and registers there too.
Foreman: The working leader of one crew on site: assigns the day's tasks, checks the work and answers to the superintendent. A subcontractor's crew has its own foreman.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, O*NET
Form 10-K: The yearly report every US public company files with the SEC. It has the company's income statement and balance sheet, plus its own explanation of how the business works and what changed.
Form 1099-NEC: The form a business sends to the IRS, and to you, to report what it paid you as an independent contractor in a year.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Form ADV: The registration form of an investment adviser firm. Part 1 answers questions about the firm; Part 2 is the brochure clients receive. Anyone can read it on the SEC's adviser search website.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Investment Management · 2023
Form I-9: The federal form that checks a new hire's identity and that they're allowed to work in the US. You keep it on file; you don't mail it in.; Source: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
Form W-4: The form a new hire fills in so you know how much federal income tax to hold back from their pay.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Form W-9: The IRS form you give a client so it has your correct taxpayer number (your Social Security number or EIN) for the report it files on what it paid you.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Founder stock agreement: The paper each founder signs to buy their shares from the new company: how many, at what price, how they vest, and what happens to them if the founder leaves.
Founding member: Someone who joins in the presale, usually at a lower rate the gym promises for a set time.
FP&A: Financial planning and analysis: the part of a finance team that builds the budget and the forecasts, and explains the gaps between plan and results.
Franchise: An arrangement where a local owner runs a restaurant under a big brand's name and pays the brand fees, and often rent, in return.
Franchise disclosure document: The long document a franchise company must give a would-be franchise owner before they sign or pay, with the fees, costs, rules and the company's track record. Often called the FDD.
Franchise tax: A yearly tax some states charge a company for being formed or doing business there, owed even in a year with no profit. It has nothing to do with franchising.
Franchised margin: What McDonald's keeps from its franchised restaurants: their rent, royalties and fees, minus McDonald's own costs as the landlord (its leases and the wear on its buildings).
Free cash flow: The cash a business brings in from running itself, minus what it spends on buildings, machines and other long-lasting things. It's what's left to pay back loans, reward owners or save.
Free rent: Months at the start of a lease when you pay no rent (or less), usually while you build out the space. Also called rent abatement.
Freelance worker protection law: A state or city law that gives one-person freelancers a written contract and a deadline to be paid. New York, California and Illinois each have one.
Freemium: Giving the basic product away free and charging for more. Lots of people try it; a small share pay.
Freeze (on hold): Pausing a gym membership for a while, often for a small monthly fee, instead of cancelling it.
Freight: Goods moved in bulk for businesses, by truck, train, ship, plane or pipeline, and the price paid to move them.
Friends-and-family night: A practice night before opening: invited guests eat for free or for little, and the kitchen and servers run a real service.
Front end: The checkout area of a store: the staffed lanes, the self-checkouts and the service desk.
Front of house: The part of a restaurant guests see, and the people who work there: servers, hosts, bussers, bartenders and counter staff.
Fuel hedge: A contract that locks in a price for fuel bought later, to protect against a price jump. If prices fall instead, the hedge costs money.
Fulfillment: Everything between an order and the customer's door: picking the item, packing it, buying the label and shipping it.
Full-time equivalent (FTE): A way to count workers in which two half-time workers count as one full-time worker. Many airlines, like Southwest and Delta, report their staff this way.
Fully diluted: Counting every share and every option or promise of shares, as if all had been turned into shares. Ownership shares in startups are usually quoted this way.
Fully loaded cost: What an employee really costs the company: their pay plus payroll taxes, benefits, equipment and the rest.
Funnel: The path from first hearing of a product to buying it, and buying again. It narrows at every step: many people see an ad, fewer visit, fewer still buy.
FUTA: Federal unemployment tax. Only the employer pays it, and only on the first part of each person's wages each year.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026

G

Garage liability insurance: Insurance for car businesses, like repair shops and dealers, that pays when the business's work or premises hurt someone or damage their things. It doesn't cover the customers' cars in the shop's care: that's garagekeepers insurance.; Source: Oregon Department of Administrative Services, Risk Management · 2026
Garagekeepers insurance: Insurance that pays for damage to customers' cars while a shop has them: on the lift, on the lot, or inside overnight. Its limit should cover every car the shop could hold at one time.; Source: Oregon Department of Administrative Services, Risk Management · 2026
GDP (gross domestic product): The value of everything a country produces in a period. Its change after inflation (real GDP) is the usual measure of whether the economy is growing.
General business license: A license (or tax registration) a city or county asks of almost every business there, whatever it does. Some places have one; some, like the State of Texas, don't.
General Certificate of Conformity: A maker's or importer's written statement that a product meets the CPSC rules that apply to it, based on testing. Needed only for products a CPSC rule covers.
General contractor: The company that signs the contract with a building's owner, runs the whole job, and hires specialty trades (subcontractors) for much of the work.
General counsel: A company's top lawyer, who leads its legal team and advises its leaders. Usually reports to the chief executive.
General liability insurance: Insurance that pays when your business injures someone or damages their things, for example a guest's fall on a wet floor, including the cost of defending a lawsuit.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Goodwill: On a balance sheet, the part of the price paid for another company that was more than the value of its separate parts, for things like its name, customers and people.
Governing law and venue: The lines in a contract that say which state's law reads it and which court (or arbitrator) would hear a dispute about it.
Grease trap: A box in the kitchen's drain pipes that catches fat and oil before they reach the sewer. Cities usually require one in a restaurant, and it has to be cleaned out regularly.
Gross Bookings: Everything customers spend through a marketplace app, before the drivers, couriers and restaurants get their share. It shows how big the marketplace is; it isn't the company's revenue.
Gross burn: Everything a company spends in a month: pay, servers, rent, ads and the rest, before counting any money coming in.
Gross margin: The share of sales left after paying for the goods themselves (the food, the products), before paying staff, rent and everything else.
Gross pay: A worker's pay for the period before anything is taken out: the hours times the hourly wage, or the salary's share for that paycheck.
Guarantee cap: A limit on a personal guarantee: for example, no more than a set number of months' rent, or a guarantee that ends after a stretch of rent paid on time. Owners ask for one; landlords don't always agree.
Guest count: How many orders a restaurant takes. McDonald's reports how guest counts changed at restaurants open more than a year, as part of comparable sales.

H

Habitable (fit to live in): A rental home that has what the law says every home must have, such as a sound roof, heat, hot and cold water, safe wiring and working plumbing. Keeping it that way is the landlord's job, whatever the lease says.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2025
Health inspection: A visit from the health department to check food safety. A new restaurant gets one before opening, then more once it's open.; Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration · 2026
Hedge: A deal made ahead of time to fix the price of something a business will need later, like coffee beans, so a sudden price jump hurts less. It also means missing out when the price falls.
Help desk: The people who answer support requests first, by phone, chat or email, and fix what they can on the spot. Harder problems go to a more senior tech.
Hold tag: A tag, often red, that quality puts on parts that failed a check. Nobody may use or ship them until quality decides what happens to them.
Holding company: A company whose main job is owning other companies. Alphabet is the holding company that owns Google; JPMorgan Chase & Co. owns the bank where customers keep their money.
Holding cost: What it costs to keep stock while it waits to sell: the cash tied up in it, the space, insurance, damage and theft, and markdowns when it goes out of style.
Holdout test: Turning an ad off for some people or places, chosen at random, and comparing their sales with everyone else's. It shows what the ad really adds.
Home business permit: A city's zoning sign-off for running a business from your home, often with limits on signs, parking and customer visits. Zoning rules still apply at home.
Home inspection: A check of a property's condition by an inspector the buyer hires, before the deal is final: the roof, plumbing, wiring, heating and the rest. A contract often lets the buyer back out or ask for a fix by a deadline.
Home occupation: A business run from a home. Zoning rules may allow it with limits, for example on customers coming and going, signs, staff or noise.
Hotel tax (transient occupancy tax): A tax a city or county charges on short stays, paid by the guest on top of the price and collected and sent in by the host or the booking site.; Source: San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector · 2026
Hotfix: A small, fast update that fixes one serious problem right away, instead of waiting for the next planned update.
Hourly guarantee: A promise in a flat-rate pay plan: if the flagged hours pay less than a set amount an hour on the clock, the shop pays that amount instead. It shares a slow week's risk between the shop and the technician.
Hourly pay: Pay for each hour worked. Hourly staff can be scheduled for more or fewer hours as the work changes.
How busy a desk is (load): The work coming in divided by the work the techs can do in the same time. Near full, waits grow fast: one more request has nobody free to take it.
Hub: An airport where an airline gathers passengers from many cities and connects them onto its other flights, so people from small cities can reach many places with one change of plane.

I

IARD: The Investment Adviser Registration Depository: the online system, run by FINRA, where adviser firms file Form ADV and pay state and SEC registration fees.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Investment Management · 2023
Ideal vs. actual food cost: The ideal is what the recipe cards say food should cost. The actual is what you really spent, including waste, spills and remakes. Owners compare the two.
Idle time: Hours your crew is paid for with no job to bill them to: rain days, slow weeks, waiting between jobs.
Import duty: A tax a country charges on goods brought in from abroad, usually a share of what was paid for them. In the US the regular rate for each product is in the official tariff schedule, by product code.; Source: U.S. International Trade Commission · 2026
Importer of record: The business or person bringing goods into a country in its own name. In the US it's responsible for paying the duties, taxes and fees to Customs.; Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection · 2026
Improvement (for taxes): Work that makes a property better, restores a major part of it or adapts it to a new use, like a new roof or an added deck. Its cost is spread over years, not taken off one year's rent.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
In-app purchase: Something a player buys inside an app after downloading it: coins, extra lives, a level, or a one-time payment to remove the ads. The app store takes its share of each one.
In-center revenue: What a gym's members spend on top of their dues: personal training, swim and kids' classes, the spa and the café.; Source: Life Time Group Holdings, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
In-house counsel (corporate counsel): Lawyers employed by one company or organization to advise it, instead of working for a law firm with many clients.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Incident (IT): Anything that stops a company's systems working as they should or puts its data at risk: an outage, a break-in, a lost laptop. A company handles it with a plan written ahead of time.
Incident report: A written record, made the same day, of an accident or injury at your business: what happened, when, who was there and what was done. Your insurer will ask for it.
Income from companies it partly owns: A company's share of the profit of a business it owns only part of, like a joint venture. Its report shows that share as one line, not that business's sales and costs. Reports call it income from equity investees.
Income statement: A report that starts with the money coming in and takes away each kind of cost, line by line, down to the profit. Also called a profit and loss statement, or P&L.
Indemnity agreement: The contract a contractor signs with a surety before being bonded, promising to repay whatever the surety pays out on its bonds. Owners often sign it personally, with their own assets behind it.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations)
Indemnity clause: A line in a contract where one side promises to pay the other side's costs if a stated thing happens, for example if its product hurts someone and the other side gets sued.
Independent agent: An insurance agent or agency with contracts to sell several insurers' policies, who can shop a client's coverage among them.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Independent contractor: Someone who works for themselves and is paid per job, not an employee. They choose their hours and pay their own costs, like a driver's car and gas.
Independent contractor license (Ohio): Ohio's license for a stylist who works on their own in someone else's salon, such as a booth renter, on top of their own cosmetology license.
Independent director: A board member who doesn't work for the company and has no close ties to it, so they can judge the managers from the outside. Stock exchange rules set the tests.
Inflation: A rise in prices across most of what people buy, so each dollar buys a little less. Usually given as the change over twelve months.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System · 2026
Interchange fee: The fee the bank that issued your card gets each time you pay with it. The card network sets it; the shop's bank pays it and passes it on to the shop.; Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Register) · 2023
Interest: What a lender charges for the use of its money, usually as a yearly percentage of what's still owed.
Interest spread: The difference between the interest rate a bank earns on what it lends and the rate it pays for the money it borrows, mostly deposits.
Interim CEO: Someone who runs the company for a while, between one CEO leaving and the next one starting. Often another top executive, such as the finance chief.
Intermodal: One trip that uses more than one way of moving, like a container that goes by ship, then train, then truck.
Internal control: A rule or habit inside a company that stops mistakes and theft, or finds them later: two people approving big payments, someone else matching the bank, a surprise count of the stockroom.
Inventory: The food, drinks and supplies on your shelves and in your coolers that you've paid for but not used yet. Owners count it at the end of every month.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Inventory-to-sales ratio: The stock on hand divided by a month's sales: about how many months of sales are sitting on the shelves.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2026
Investment adviser (registered investment adviser): A firm, or a person working alone, paid to give advice about investments. It registers with its state securities regulator, or with the SEC once it manages enough money, and files Form ADV.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Division of Investment Management · 2023
Investment adviser representative: A person who gives advice for an investment adviser firm. Besides the firm's own registration, each one passes an exam (or holds a designation that waives it) and is registered through a Form U4.; Source: Washington State Department of Financial Institutions, Securities Division · 2026
Investment banking: Helping companies raise money by selling shares or bonds, and advising them on buying or merging with other companies, for a fee.
Invoice: The bill a supplier sends with or after a delivery: what came, how much of it, the price and the total you owe.
IP assignment: A signed paper that hands the ownership of someone's work, such as code, designs or inventions, to the company. Without one, the person who wrote the code usually still owns it.; Source: U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo) · 2023
IPO (initial public offering): The first time a company sells its shares to the public, so anyone can buy them on a stock exchange.

J

Job cost report: A running record of one job: each cost line's budget next to what's been spent so far, how much of its work is done, and where it's heading by the end.
Joint check: A check made out to two people at once, such as the contractor and a supplier, so both must sign it. It makes sure the supplier is paid from that money.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026
Joint venture: A company two or more companies own together, each with a share. They split its profit by their shares and decide the big things together.
Joint venture (airlines): A deal in which two or more airlines plan schedules and prices together on certain routes and share the money those routes bring in, almost as if they were one airline there.
Just cause: A reason the law accepts for ending a tenancy, such as unpaid rent or the owner moving in. Where just-cause rules apply, the reason must be written in the notice.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2025
Just in time: Getting parts or goods right before they're needed, so little money waits on shelves, but there's almost no cushion.

L

Labor budget: How much you plan to spend on staff for a week or a shift: your expected sales times your labor target.
Labor burden: What an hour of work costs on top of the wage: payroll taxes, workers' comp, unemployment insurance and benefits. Estimators price crew hours at the wage plus the burden.
Labor cost %: What a restaurant spends on its staff (wages, payroll taxes and benefits) as a share of its sales.
Labor rate: What a repair shop charges for one hour of work on a car, counted the way the bill counts hours. It pays for far more than the technician's wage: the bays, tools, insurance, the hours nobody pays for, and the owner.
Landed cost: What one item really costs by the time it reaches you: the supplier's price plus freight, import duty and tariffs, customs fees, samples and the trip to your door, shared out over every piece in the batch.
Last mile: The last leg of a delivery: from a local delivery station to the customer's door. It's often costly, because every stop is a different address.
Late cancellation: A client who cancels too close to the appointment for the time to be filled by someone else. Many salons set a notice period, often a day.
Lawyer referral service: A service, often run by a local bar association, that matches you with a lawyer who handles your kind of problem, usually with a free or low-cost first talk. In California, the State Bar certifies them.
Lead: Someone who has asked about buying from you, by filling in a form, calling or sending a message, but hasn't bought yet. A sales plan counts how many leads become customers.
Lead independent director: A director who isn't one of the company's managers and leads the other independent directors, often when the CEO also chairs the board.
Lead time: How long it takes from placing an order with a supplier to having the goods in hand.
Lead-paint disclosure: For a home built before 1978, the form and pamphlet a landlord must give before a lease starts: what they know about lead paint in the home, plus a warning statement in the lease.; Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2026
Lean plan (one-page plan): A short business plan with only the key parts, usually one page: who it's for, what you offer, how it runs and the money. The long, traditional plan is what many lenders ask for later.
Lease exit cost: What it costs to leave a lease before it ends: the rent still owed, or a payment to the landlord to let you go. Closing a shop doesn't end its lease.; Source: Starbucks Corporation (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Lease liability: The rent a business has promised to pay over the rest of its leases, counted on the balance sheet as something it owes.
Least privilege: A security rule: each person gets the access their job needs, and no more. Anything extra is asked for, approved and added one piece at a time.
Legal hold: A notice from a company's lawyers telling staff to keep every record that might matter to a lawsuit, and to stop anything that deletes them automatically.
Less-than-truckload: A shipment too small to fill a truck, carried on a truck shared with other shippers' goods.
Letter of intent: A short summary of a lease's main terms (rent, length, allowance, free rent) that the landlord and tenant agree on before the full lease is written. Most of its terms aren't binding yet, so it's the time to ask for what you need.
Leverage: In a consulting firm, how many junior people work under each senior one. More leverage means more of the hours are done by people who cost less.
Liabilities: Everything a business owes: loans, bills from suppliers, wages earned but not yet paid, rent it has promised on a lease.
Liability: Being legally responsible for harm done to someone else, such as a guest who slips or gets sick. Liability insurance pays for the claim and the lawyers.
Liability waiver: A paper a member signs saying they know exercise has risks and giving up some claims against the gym for ordinary accidents. State law decides what it can cover; no waiver covers everything.
License (for a creative work or a brand): Permission, usually paid for, to use someone else's work, invention or brand in agreed ways.
License bond (contractor's bond): A bond a state requires before it issues or renews a contractor's license. It pays clients harmed by license-law violations, such as defective work, and workers owed wages; the contractor pays the surety back.; Source: California Legislature
License term: How long you commit to paying for a software license. On a one-year term you pay for every user until the year ends, even if the client needs fewer.
Licensed content: A show or film a streaming service rents from the studio that owns it, for a set number of years. When the license ends, it leaves the service.
Licensed store: A store another company runs under a brand's name, like a coffee counter in an airport or a grocery store. The licensee pays the staff and the rent and buys its supplies from the brand, which also takes a royalty.
Licensee in charge: In California, the licensed person who is responsible for the salon whenever it's open. It can be the owner, a manager or another licensed stylist, but not an apprentice.
Licensing: Letting another company use your name, recipes and methods in return for a share of its sales. Like a franchise, the other company pays to build and run the store.
Lien on equipment: A lender's legal claim on something a loan paid for, like an oven, so the lender can take it if the loan isn't repaid. It's filed in public records so other lenders can see it.
Lien release: A signed paper in which a sub or supplier gives up their lien rights for a payment. A conditional release counts only once the payment arrives; an unconditional release says it has arrived. Also called a lien waiver.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026
Like-kind exchange: Selling a rental or business property and buying another within set deadlines, through a middleman who holds the money, so the tax on the gain is put off until a later sale. Also called a 1031 exchange, after its section of the tax code.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Likelihood of confusion: When shoppers would likely think two products come from the same maker, because the names are similar and the goods are related. The most common reason the trademark office refuses an application.; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Limit of liability (liability cap): A contract line that sets the most one side can be made to pay the other if something goes wrong, for example the fees paid in the last twelve months. Whether a cap holds depends on the law where you are and how it's written.
Limit on liability: A line in a contract that caps how much one side can claim from the other if something goes wrong, often no more than the fees paid.
Limitation of liability: A line in a contract that caps the most one side can ever owe the other, or rules out some kinds of loss. How far it holds depends on the law and how it's written.
Limited liability: Protection that keeps an owner's own house and savings out of reach of the business's debts and lawsuits, in most cases. LLCs and corporations give it; a sole proprietorship doesn't.
Line of authority: A kind of insurance a producer license lets you sell, such as property and casualty, or life, accident and health. Each needs its own exam.
Line of credit: A loan you can draw on when you need it, up to a limit, paying interest only on what you use. Businesses use one to get through gaps between paying and getting paid.
Liquor license: Permission from your state (and in some places your city) to sell alcohol. It often takes months, so owners apply early.
Live ops: Short for live operations: running a game after it's out. The live ops team releases updates, watches for crashes and runs events, sales and seasons.
LLC (limited liability company): A common way to set up a small business. You form it with your state, and it keeps the business's debts separate from your own.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Load factor: The share of an airline's seats that are filled with paying passengers, counted over the miles flown.
Load sheet (load manifest): The paper that tells the pilots what the plane weighs at takeoff (plane, fuel, passengers, bags, cargo) and shows it's balanced and under its limits. The FAA requires one for every airline flight.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 2026
Loan-to-value (LTV): The loan as a share of the property's price or value. A loan of most of the price means a small down payment; the most a lender allows sets the smallest down payment.; Source: Freddie Mac · 2026
Lockout (self-help eviction): Trying to force a tenant out without a court: changing the locks, removing doors or belongings, or shutting off water, power or heat. It's against the law in California and many other states.; Source: California Legislative Information · 1979
Lockout/tagout: Shutting off a machine's power and putting a lock (or, where a lock can't be fitted, a tag) on the switch before anyone services it, so nobody can start it by mistake. Normally only the worker who put it on takes it off.; Source: Occupational Safety and Health Administration · 2026
Loss ratio: What an insurer spends on claims, including the cost of settling them, as a share of the premiums it earned.
Loss reserves: Money an insurer sets aside for claims that have happened but aren't paid yet, including crashes nobody has reported so far.
Lot code: A code printed on a product or its box that says which run or batch it came from, so a problem can be traced to one lot instead of everything you made.
Loyalty program: A rewards program that gives regular customers points or miles to spend later, so they keep coming back. An airline's is called a frequent-flyer program.

M

Machine hour: An hour a machine spends on a job. When one person tends two machines, each machine hour carries only half that person's cost, so shops price machine hours and labor hours separately.
Mail Order Rule: The FTC's rule for anything sold online, by phone or by mail: ship when you said you would, or within thirty days if you said nothing, and if you can't, tell the buyer and let them cancel for a refund.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2025
Major food allergen: One of the nine foods US law says must be named on a food's label when they're in it: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame.
Managed service provider (MSP): An IT firm that looks after a business's computers, network and accounts for a fixed fee every month, instead of billing each fix. The agreement says what the fee covers and what is billed extra.
Margin: The share of each sale a business keeps after paying a set of costs. Profit margin is what's left after paying for everything.
Marginal tax rate: The rate on your next dollar of income: the rate of the highest bracket you reach. A raise into a higher bracket is taxed at that rate only on the dollars above the line.
Mark up (redline): To edit the other side's draft contract, showing what you'd delete and add, so both sides can see every proposed change.
Markdown: Cutting the price of goods that aren't selling, to move them before they lose more value.
Market price: The price where what buyers want and what sellers bring meet. Nobody sets it alone; it moves when supply or demand shifts.
Market share: One company's slice of all the sales in a market. For US airlines the government measures it in revenue passenger miles: one paying passenger flown one mile.
Market size: How much everyone in a target market buys of a kind of product in a year, in units or dollars. It's the size of the field, not one brand's sales.
Market value: What buyers pay for a whole company today. For a public company it's the share price times the number of shares.
Marketplace facilitator: A marketplace like Etsy or Amazon that, under many states' laws, must collect and send in the sales tax on its sellers' sales.
Markup: How much a business adds on top of what something cost it, as a share of that cost. Markup divides by the cost; margin divides by the price, so the same dollars give a bigger markup than margin.
Material (to investors): Important enough that a reasonable investor would want to know about it before buying or selling a company's shares. A public company decides whether an event is material, and must then tell the public.
Meatpacker: A company that buys cattle (or hogs, or chickens), slaughters them and cuts the meat into boxed cuts and ground meat for stores, restaurants and distributors.
Mechanics lien: A claim on a property, recorded with the county, by someone who worked on it or supplied materials for it and wasn't paid. It stays on the title until it's paid or removed, and it can be used to force a sale. Each state has its own rules and deadlines.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026
Mediation: A meeting where a neutral person, the mediator, helps both sides of a dispute look for a settlement. The mediator doesn't decide the case.
Membership fee: A yearly fee a customer pays for the right to shop or use a service, whatever they buy.
Menu mix: Which dishes guests actually order, and how often. A good mix leans on dishes that earn more per sale.
Merchandising: Choosing what to sell, in which sizes and colors, how much to order from the factory, and how to show it, from the product photos to the order on the page.
Merchant discount: What a shop pays its own bank or payment company on each card sale. It covers the interchange fee, the network's fees and the payment company's own charge.; Source: Visa Inc. · 2026
Merger: Two companies combining into one. In the US, the Justice Department can sue to stop a merger that would hurt competition, or let it go ahead if the companies sell off some parts.
Microloan: A small business loan, through the SBA's program made by nonprofit community lenders, often to businesses too small or new for a bank.
Minimum Equipment List (MEL): An FAA-approved list, for each plane type, of the parts that may be broken for a while and what the crew must do instead. A part not on the list must be fixed before the plane flies.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations · 2026
Minimum fee (for a tax return): The lowest price a preparer charges for any return, before adding a price for each extra schedule or form. It keeps a simple return from being priced below what the time and the risk are worth.
Minimum net worth (advisers): The money an adviser firm must own beyond what it owes, set by its state. In Washington it rises if the firm decides trades on its own or holds clients' money.; Source: Washington State Legislature · 2019
Minimum order quantity: The smallest amount a supplier will sell you at once: a full bundle of steel, a pallet of flour, a unit of plywood. If you need less, you still buy the minimum and keep the rest.
Minimum volume commitment: A promise in a manufacturing agreement to buy at least a set amount over a period. Buy less, and you may owe the maker a penalty.; Source: BellRing Brands, Inc. (filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) · 2025
Misclassification: Treating a worker as an independent contractor (a renter) when the way the work is run makes them an employee. The business can owe back payroll taxes and wages.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Money held for others: Money that passes through an agency but isn't the agency's own, like a premium on its way to the insurer or a refund owed to a client. Agencies must keep it apart and pass it on; mishandling it is a common reason for claims against them.
Month-end close: Finishing a month's books once its statements arrive: every transaction recorded and sorted, the accounts reconciled and the reports ready.
Monthly active viewers: A count of people who watch in a month, not of paying accounts. One paid membership can have several viewers in the same home.
Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): What all your subscribers pay you in a month, added up. Software owners track it more than any other number.
Mortgage: A loan to buy a property, with the property as the promise: if the payments stop, the lender can take it and sell it. Paid back in monthly payments, usually over many years.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA): Signing in with two or more kinds of proof, such as a password plus a code from your phone, so a stolen password alone isn't enough.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2024
Multi-point inspection: A checklist a technician goes through on a car: brakes, tires, battery, fluids and more, each marked by the shop's rules, often green for fine, yellow for soon and red for now.
Multiple (of a price): A business's price divided by one of its yearly numbers, like its revenue or its profit. A price of two times commissions means the buyer pays two years' worth of the commissions it's buying.
Must-have: A requirement a person needs to do the job at all, written in the job post. Recruiters screen applications against the must-haves; nice-to-haves only help.

N

National bank: A bank whose charter, its license to be a bank, comes from the OCC, a federal agency that also supervises it.; Source: Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) · 2026
National brand: A brand that its maker owns and sells through many stores, like a famous cereal or battery brand. The opposite of a store's own brand.
Nearshoring: Moving production to suppliers in or near your own country, for shorter, safer trips, often at a higher price.
Net 30: Invoice terms meaning the client pays within thirty days of the invoice date.
Net burn: What a company spends in a month minus the money coming in: the cash it actually loses. Runway is the cash divided by this.
Net earnings from self-employment: The part of your business profit that self-employment tax is worked out on. The IRS takes a set share of your profit, roughly what's left after the employer's half of the tax.
Net income: The bottom line: what's left after every cost, including interest and taxes. It belongs to the owners.
Net interest income: The interest a bank earns on its loans and bonds, minus the interest it pays on deposits and its own borrowing. The gap is a bank's biggest source of money.
Net lease (triple net): A lease where you pay the building's property taxes, insurance and upkeep on top of the rent. Triple net, or NNN, means all three. The base rent looks lower than the real monthly bill.; Source: Dutch Bros Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Net margin: Net income as a share of sales: what's left of each dollar after every cost, including interest and taxes.
Net operating income: What a rental earns before any loan payment and before income tax: the rent collected minus the costs of running it, such as property tax, insurance, repairs and a manager.
Net revenue retention: What last year's customers pay now, after cancellations, downgrades and upgrades, as a share of what they paid before. Over a hundred percent means your existing customers grew.; Source: HubSpot, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Net sales: Money from selling goods, after returns and discounts. At Costco it doesn't include the membership fees, which are counted separately.
Net worth: What a family owns (savings, investments, a home, a car) minus what it owes. It counts more than savings, so the money a family could invest can be much less.
Network effect: When a product gets more useful as more people use it. On a marketplace, more buyers attract more sellers, and more sellers attract more buyers.
New-hire report: A short report to your state about each person you hire or rehire. Federal law requires it, and states use it to help collect child support.; Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support
Niche: One kind of client a business chooses to specialize in, such as dentists' offices or rideshare drivers. Serving one kind well makes the work faster and the business easier to recommend.
No decision: When a client you sent a proposal to doesn't pick anyone and does nothing. Often a consultant's biggest competitor.
No-show: A client who books an appointment and doesn't come or cancel. The time was held for them, so nobody else could book it.
Non-compete: A clause in a job contract that says you won't work for a competitor, or compete yourself, for a time after you leave. Whether one can be enforced depends on your state's law.
Non-compete agreement: A promise not to run a competing business, often for a set time and area. When someone sells a business, it stops them winning their old clients back the next day. Whether it holds depends on state law.
Non-solicitation clause: A clause in a job contract that says you won't approach your old employer's clients or staff for a time after you leave.
Nonemployer business: A business with no paid employees, usually just the owner working alone. The Census counts them separately from businesses with a payroll.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2024
Nonemployer business: The Census Bureau's name for a business with no employees, just the owner: a solo consultant, a freelancer, a side business.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2023
Nonemployer business: A business with no paid employees: the owner, or owners, do the work. Most US businesses are this kind.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2023
Nonrenewal: When an insurer decides not to offer a policy again at the end of its term. Texas makes insurers warn car and home clients well ahead, so they have time to find other coverage.; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2026
Notice of completion: A form the property owner records with the county when a job is finished. In California it shortens the time contractors, subs and suppliers have to record a lien.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026
Notice to Owner: A warning a California home improvement contract must include, telling the owner that unpaid contractors, subs and suppliers can put a lien on the home, and how to protect against it.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026

O

Occupancy: The share of a hotel's rooms that were sold: rooms sold divided by rooms available.
Occupancy cost: What it costs to be in your building: mostly rent, plus related costs such as property taxes.
Occupational fraud: A worker, manager or owner stealing from or cheating the organization they work for, such as paying a fake supplier or taking goods.; Source: Association of Certified Fraud Examiners · 2026
Offboarding (IT): What IT does when someone leaves: turning off their sign-in, taking back their devices, moving their files and closing every account they had.
Offer (in one sentence): What you sell, said so anyone can repeat it: who you help, which problem you fix and what result they get.
Offline backup: A copy of a company's files kept where its everyday network can't reach it, so ransomware that locks the computers can't lock or delete the copy too.; Source: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and partner agencies · 2023
Offsite Ads: Etsy's ads for sellers' items on other websites. You pay a share of an order only when a buyer came through one of those ads.; Source: Etsy, Inc. · 2026
On call: Ready to answer if something urgent comes up outside working hours, usually by phone from home, taking turns with others.
On-target pay: What a salesperson earns in a year if sales exactly hit the quota: the base salary plus the commission at quota. Often called on-target earnings.
On-time in-full: A store's measure of whether a supplier's shipments arrive in the delivery window with everything ordered. Shipments that miss can be fined.
Onboarding: What a gym does in a new member's first weeks to help them build a habit: a first session with a coach, a simple plan, a check-in when they miss a week.
Onboarding fee: A one-time fee at the start of a monthly IT agreement, for the first weeks of work: learning the client's setup, cleaning it up and installing the firm's tools.
One-time cost: Something you pay once to open, like equipment, a deposit on a space, permits or a logo. Rent and pay come back every month; these don't.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration · 2026
One-time tooling charge (NRE): What a shop charges once for a new job's fixture, mold, programming or design work. NRE stands for non-recurring engineering. Quoting it on its own line keeps the price of each piece honest.
Opening rush: The extra-busy weeks after a new restaurant opens, when people come to try it. It usually fades, so it isn't the normal level of sales.
Operated market: McDonald's name for a country where it runs some restaurants itself and franchises the rest, owning or leasing the buildings, as in the US: for example Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK.
Operating agreement: An LLC's own written rules: who owns what share, who decides, what each owner put in, and what happens if an owner leaves, sells or dies. Worth writing even with one owner.
Operating income: Profit from running the business: sales minus the cost of the goods and the costs of running the place (staff, rent and so on), before interest and taxes.
Operating leverage: When sales grow faster than the costs that don't grow with each sale, like a team's pay, so profit grows faster than sales. It works the other way too: when sales fall, profit falls faster.
Operating margin: Operating income as a share of revenue: what's left of each sales dollar after running the business, before interest and taxes.
Operations center (airline): The room where an airline runs the day: dispatchers plan and watch each flight, crew schedulers keep every crew legal to fly, and duty managers pull the fixes together when something goes wrong.
Order ahead: Ordering and paying in an app before you arrive, then picking the drink up. Also called mobile ordering.
Order review: Checking a customer's order against the quote before any work starts: the quantity, the drawing and its revision, the material and the ship date. Sales, engineering and planning often do it together.
Ordinary wear and tear: The wearing out that comes from normal living in a home: faded paint, carpet worn where people walk, small scuffs. In many states, California among them, a landlord can't take it out of the deposit.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2025
Other Bets: Alphabet's businesses outside Google, reported together because each is small on its own, like Waymo's self-driving rides and X, its moonshot factory. They run as separate companies, and some have their own boards and outside investors.; Source: Alphabet Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Outage: A stretch of time when a website or app stops working, or stops working for many of its users.
Outside counsel: A law firm a company hires for particular work, such as a big lawsuit or a rare specialty, usually paid by the hour.
Outside sales: Selling in person, away from the employer's offices, as the main job. Under federal law, outside salespeople don't have to be paid minimum wage or overtime. Selling by phone or online from an office isn't outside sales.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division · 2024
Overbooking: Selling a few more tickets than a flight has seats, because some ticket holders usually don't show up. It's legal in the US.
Overhead: The costs of running the business that no single job pays for on its own: the truck, insurance, the office, the phone, and the hours spent estimating jobs. Each bid carries a share of it.
Overhead (IT firm): The costs of running an IT firm that no single client pays for on its own: the help desk software, insurance, the office, phones and the hours spent winning new clients. Each user's price carries a share of it.
Overhead rate: A year of overhead divided by a year of direct job costs, as a percentage. Each bid adds that share of its direct cost to pay its part of the truck, the office, insurance and the rest.
Oversell: Selling repairs or services a car doesn't need, often by scaring the customer. California's repair bureau lists it as a kind of complaint.
Overtime: Extra pay, at a higher rate, for hours past the weekly limit. Federal law counts hours by the workweek; some states add rules of their own.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
Owner's draw: Money a sole owner takes out of the business for themselves. It isn't a wage on the profit report: the profit is the owner's to draw from.
Owner's representative: The person who speaks for the building's owner on a job: answers the builder's questions about what the owner wants and approves changes for the owner.
Owners' stake (equity): What would be left for the owners if the business sold everything it owns and paid everything it owes, at the values on the balance sheet. It grows with profit and money owners put in, and shrinks with losses and money they take out.

P

Packing slip: The paper inside the box that lists what was ordered and what was packed. The customer reads it; returns start from it.
Paid cost to win a customer: The money spent on marketing and sales divided by only the customers that spending brought in. It's what each extra customer costs when you spend more.
Paid pilot: A short trial a business customer pays for, with a written agreement, a start date and what success looks like. It costs less than the full price and shows the customer means it.
Paid sharing: Netflix's name for charging when someone outside the account owner's home watches on the account: they start their own membership, or the owner pays to add them as an extra member.
Paid time off (paid leave): Time off that's still paid, like vacation, holidays and sick days. The employer pays for hours nobody works.
Pallet: A flat wooden or plastic base that boxes are stacked on, so a forklift can move them as one load.
Par level: How much of an item you want on hand right after a delivery: enough to last until the next one, plus a cushion. Each order fills the shelf back up to par.
Paralegal: A trained legal worker who drafts documents, keeps the files and does research for lawyers. They work under a lawyer's supervision.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Parent company: A company that owns other companies. Alphabet is Google's parent: it owns Google, plus newer businesses like Waymo, and files one annual report for all of them.
Partnership: A business owned by two or more people together. Its profit passes through to the partners' own tax returns.
Parts matrix: A repair shop's price list for marking up parts: a bigger markup on cheap parts and a smaller one on expensive parts, set by what each part cost the shop.
Passive loss limit: The IRS rule that a rental's tax loss usually can't be taken off your pay or other income, except up to a set amount for owners who help manage it, an amount that shrinks as income rises. Unused losses wait for later years.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Patch: An update to a game that's already out: fixes, changes and often new things to play. Big online games ship them on a regular schedule.
Patch notes: The list a studio posts for players of what changed in an update: new content, fixes and changes to how things work.
Patent: A right, granted by the government after examining an application, to stop others from making, using or selling an invention for a set number of years. The invention becomes public.; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Pay per head: Paying an instructor by how many people come to a class: often a base amount for the class plus a set amount for each person in the room.
Pay ratio: The CEO's total pay for the year divided by the pay of the company's median employee, the one in the middle when everyone is lined up by pay. Most large US public companies print it in their proxy statement.
Pay scale (pay range): The lowest and highest pay a company honestly expects to offer for a job. Some states, California among them, make larger employers put it in the job post.; Source: California Labor Commissioner's Office (Department of Industrial Relations) · 2026
Payback period: How long it takes a new store, machine or project to earn back the cash put into it.
Payment bond: A bond that promises the subcontractors and suppliers on a job they'll be paid. If the contractor doesn't pay them, the surety does, then collects from the contractor.; Source: General Services Administration (Acquisition.gov) · 2026
Payment reserve: Money a marketplace or payment company holds back from a seller's sales for a while, in case of refunds or problems, instead of paying it out right away.; Source: Etsy Help Center · 2026
Payment terms: When a customer has to pay, written on the order and the invoice: on delivery, or a set number of days after the invoice. Longer terms keep your cash tied up longer.
Payout: The money a store platform or marketplace sends to your bank after taking its fees. It isn't profit: you still pay for the product, the shipping and the ads out of it.
Payout rate: The share of the fees and commissions an advisor brings in that the firm they work through pays back to them. The firm keeps the rest for its platform, trading, compliance and profit.; Source: LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (filed with the SEC) · 2025
Payroll tax: Tax an employer pays on top of the wages it pays, such as its share of Social Security and Medicare and federal unemployment tax.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Per-user pricing: A monthly price for each person the IT firm supports. A client with more staff pays more; adding or removing a person changes the bill.
Percent complete: How much of a job, or of one line of it, is done. Comparing it with how much of the budget is spent shows whether the line is on pace.
Percentage point: The gap between two percents. A margin that falls from 10% to 8% fell by two percentage points, which is a fifth of the margin, not 2% of it.
Performance bond: A bond that promises the client the job will be finished as agreed. If the contractor can't finish, the surety pays to get it done, then collects from the contractor.; Source: General Services Administration (Acquisition.gov) · 2026
Permit contingency: A line in a lease that lets the tenant walk away, or start paying rent later, if the city refuses the permits the business needs in that space.
Persistent identifier: A code that recognizes the same user or device over time and across apps, such as a device's advertising ID. Under COPPA it counts as a child's personal information.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2025
Person-month: The work one person can do in one month. Two engineers working for three months is six person-months. Product teams use it to say how big a piece of work is.; Source: Sean McBride, Intercom · 2018
Personal banker: The person at a branch who opens and changes accounts and helps customers choose them. BLS counts personal bankers with financial services sales agents.; Source: O*NET, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration · 2026
Personal guarantee: A promise by the owner to repay a business loan from their own money if the business can't.
Personal guarantee on a lease: The owner's own promise to pay the rent and keep the lease's other promises if the business can't. It's often signed on its own page, apart from the lease, which is in the business's name, so the owner's own savings stay on the hook even if the business closes.
Phantom stock: Goods the store's computer says are on hand that aren't anywhere in the store. Because the system thinks they're there, it doesn't order more, and the shelf stays empty until someone fixes the count.
Phased release: Sending an update to a small share of players first and more over time, so a bad problem reaches few people before it's caught. Apple's App Store calls it phased release; Google Play calls it a staged rollout.; Source: Apple · 2026
Phishing: A message (email, text or call) that pretends to come from someone you trust, to get you to click a link, sign in on a fake page, pay or send something, usually in a hurry.
Pick list: The list of items a warehouse worker collects from the shelves, grouped so they walk each aisle once.
Pick-up store: A small coffee shop with little or no seating, made for customers who order on an app and collect their drink, or have it delivered.
Pipeline: All the possible work you're talking about with clients: first conversations, proposals sent, and deals waiting for a yes. Today's pipeline is next quarter's calendar.
Pivot: Changing one big part of the plan, such as who the customer is or which problem you solve, after a test shows the first plan doesn't work.
Plan review: When the building, fire and health departments check your drawings before you build, so the kitchen and dining room meet the rules.; Source: U.S. Food and Drug Administration · 2026
Plan with ads: A cheaper subscription where the viewer sees some ads. The member pays less, and advertisers pay to reach them, so the company earns from both.
Plate cost: What all the ingredients and packaging in one serving of a dish cost you.
Policies in force: The insurance policies that are active on a given day. Insurers use the count to measure how many customers they have.
Policy limit: The most an insurer will pay: for one accident, and in total for the year. Anything above it is yours to pay.
Positioning: The choice behind a brand: who it's for, what it promises them, why they should believe it, and who it's not for.
Power of attorney (Form 2848): The IRS form a client signs to let a CPA, enrolled agent or attorney deal with the IRS for them. To step away, the representative writes "WITHDRAW" across the top, signs and dates it, and sends a copy to the IRS.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2021
Pre-opening costs: What a new location spends before it earns anything: rent, staff training and pay, and other running costs in the weeks before the doors open.; Source: Planet Fitness, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Pre-opening costs: What a restaurant spends after it has a place and before it sells anything: rent while it's built, managers' pay, hiring and training the crew, practice meals.
Pre-order: Paying for something before it exists or ships. For a product still being tested, a pre-order should come with a clear date and a refund if it never arrives.
Pre-shift lineup: A short meeting before service where a manager or chef tells the team about tonight's specials, dishes that have run out, big bookings and anything that went wrong last time.
Pre-tax deduction: Money taken out of a paycheck before some taxes are figured, so those taxes are smaller. A worker's share of health insurance usually is; a 401(k) savings plan is before income tax but not before Social Security and Medicare.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Preapproval letter: A letter from a lender saying it's generally willing to lend you up to a certain amount, after a first look at your money and credit. It isn't a promise of a loan, but sellers like to see one with an offer.; Source: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau · 2024
Preferred stock: A kind of share that gets its dividend before ordinary shares do. Mandatory convertible preferred stock turns into ordinary shares on a set date.
Preliminary notice: A notice a subcontractor or supplier sends the property owner early in a job, saying who they are and that they could file a lien if they aren't paid. In some states, including California, skipping it can cost them their lien rights.; Source: California Contractors State License Board · 2026
Premerger filing (Hart-Scott-Rodino): The US report the buyer and seller in a large deal must send the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department before it closes, followed by a waiting period while the agencies look at it.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2026
Premium: What a customer pays an insurance company, usually every month or year, for coverage.
Premium cabin: The seats at the front of the plane, like first class, business class and extra-legroom seats, sold for more than a main cabin seat on the same flight.
Premium retention: The premiums an agency's clients pay this year as a share of what they paid last year. It counts the clients who stayed at their new renewal prices, so it can be higher than the share of clients kept.
Presale: Selling memberships before a gym opens, often from a small office near the site, so the gym opens with members already signed up.
Present value: What money you'll get later is worth today. It's less than the later amount, because money in hand today could earn interest in the meantime.
Presumption of employment: A rule that treats someone as an employee unless the business proves they aren't. The EU's platform work rules use one when there are facts showing the platform directs and controls the work.; Source: EUR-Lex, Official Journal of the European Union · 2024
Preventive controls: The steps a food maker writes down and follows to stop known hazards, such as germs or an allergen getting into the wrong product. Required by FDA's food safety rules, with lighter rules for very small businesses.
Price and volume: How many you sell at a given price. Sales are the number of customers times what each one spends, so a higher price can bring in more money or less, depending on how many customers stay.
Price break: A lower price per unit for a bigger order, like one price for a few dozen and a lower one for a few hundred. Bigger orders spread the setup, so they cost less to make each.
Prime cost: Food and drink costs plus labor costs: the two biggest costs in most restaurants.
Prime rate: The interest rate big banks post as a base for business loans. Many loans are priced as prime plus a few points.
Principal: The part of a loan you still owe, not counting interest. The part of each payment that isn't interest lowers it. Early in a long loan, most of each payment is interest; later, most of it is principal.
Print-on-demand: A print company makes each item only after a customer orders it, then ships it for you. No stock to buy, but a higher cost per item.
Privacy label: The part of an app's store page that says what data the app collects and what it's used for. Apple calls it App privacy details; Google calls it the Data safety section. The developer fills it in, and it must include what the outside tools in the app collect.; Source: Apple Developer · 2026
Private label: A store's own brand, made for it by suppliers, like Costco's Kirkland Signature. It usually earns the store more per sale than a national brand.
Proceeds: Apple's word for what reaches the developer from a sale, after Apple's commission and certain taxes.
Processing time: The time a color or chemical treatment sits on the hair before it's rinsed. A stylist can often fit a short service for another client into it.
Producer (game studio): The person who owns a game team's schedule: what goes into each update, when it ships, and who works on what. The game director decides what the game is; the producer decides when and with whom.
Producer license: The license a state gives a person to sell insurance; insurance laws call agents producers. You pass the state's exam and apply, then renew it (in Texas, every two years).; Source: Texas Department of Insurance · 2025
Product inventory: The products a salon has paid for but hasn't sold or used yet, like shampoo on the shelf. The money is spent until they sell.
Product liability: A maker's legal responsibility when its product hurts someone or damages their property. Usually covered by a general liability insurance policy.
Product manager: The person at a software company who decides what gets built next and why. They talk to customers, write the plan for each new feature, and later find out whether it did what it was meant to do. They don't write the code or manage the people who do.
Product recall insurance: A separate policy, or an add-on, that pays the costs of pulling your own product back: finding it, shipping it, destroying it and replacing it. Standard liability policies usually leave these out.
Product-market fit: When enough customers want a product, and pay for it and keep using it, that the business can grow by selling it. Without it, more marketing only fills a leaky bucket.
Production sample: A few pieces a factory makes before the full batch, so you can check the size, color and print. Approve it before you pay the rest of the order.
Professional liability insurance: Insurance for a business that gives advice or services, also called errors and omissions (E&O). It helps pay legal fees when a client says a mistake or negligence in your work cost them money.; Source: Insureon · 2026
Professional liability insurance: Insurance that pays when a service you give, like a trainer's program or advice, is said to have hurt someone, including the cost of defending a lawsuit. Also called errors and omissions, or malpractice insurance.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Professional liability insurance: Insurance that pays when a client says your work harmed them, through a mistake or carelessness, such as a chemical burn from a color. General liability covers other accidents, like a client's fall.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration · 2026
Professional or trade license: A license from a state board to do certain work, like cutting hair or building, usually after training or a test. It goes with the person or the trade, not the place.
Profit before taxes: What's left of sales after every cost of running the business, before income tax. Also called income before taxes.
Profit center: A part of a company that brings in sales and is judged on the profit it makes, like a region's stores or a cloud business.
Progress billing: Billing a client in parts as each stage of a job is finished, instead of all at the end, so money comes in while the work goes on.
Project engineer (construction): A project manager's right hand, often a first job after college: keeps the drawings current and moves the paper, such as shop drawings to the architect and questions about the drawings.
Project manager (construction): The person who runs a job's contract, money and calendar: signs the subcontracts, buys the materials, handles the owner and the architect, and agrees any change before it's built.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Promoter (paid referrals): Someone an adviser pays to send clients, like a partner who gets a share of the fee. The SEC's marketing rule asks for disclosure and, over a small amount, a written agreement; states add their own rules.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2022
Prompt Payment Act: The federal law that makes US government agencies pay their vendors on time, and pay interest automatically when they're late.
Property insurance: Insurance that pays to repair or replace your own building, equipment and stock after a fire, storm, break-in or vandalism.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration
Property manager: A person or company an owner pays to run a rental day to day: finding tenants, collecting rent, handling repair calls. Usually paid a share of the rent, sometimes plus fees.
Proposal: A short document that tells a client what you'll do, what's not included, what it costs and when they pay. Once signed, it's the deal.
Prospectus: The document a company files and gives investors when it sells shares to the public: the business, the risks, the price and what the money is for.
Provision for credit losses: Money a bank sets aside, as a cost, for loans it expects won't be paid back. It's an estimate made up front, before the losses happen.
Proxy statement: The report a public company sends shareholders before its yearly meeting, with who is on the board, what the top executives are paid and what shareholders will vote on. Its SEC form is DEF 14A.
PTIN (preparer tax identification number): The number the IRS gives anyone who prepares, or helps prepare, federal tax returns for pay. It goes on every return they prepare and is renewed every year. On its own it lets you prepare returns, not speak for clients to the IRS.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Public company: A company whose shares anyone can buy on a stock exchange. In return it has to publish reports on its business for everyone to read.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2026
Public domain: Creative work no longer protected by copyright (or never protected), which anyone may copy and use.
Punch list: The list of small things left to fix or finish at the end of a job, written down at a walk-through with the client. The last payment usually waits until it's done.
Purchase order: A customer's written order: what it's buying, how many, at what price, when it should arrive and when it will pay. Once you accept it, it's a deal.
Purchase order (PO): A number a client's company gives a piece of work it has approved buying. Many companies won't pay an invoice that doesn't show it.
Pure premium rate: The part of an insurance rate that pays expected claims and the cost of handling them, before the insurer's commissions, expenses, taxes and profit. In California, workers' comp pure premium rates are advisory: insurers set their own.; Source: Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB)

Q

QA (quality assurance): The testing team. Testers play each new version of the game on the phones, consoles and computers it supports, and write up every problem they find for the engineers.
Qualified lead: A possible customer the sales team has checked and found worth chasing: they have a real need, the money, a person who can say yes, and a date they need it by.
Qualified tips: Under the federal tax law that started in 2025, tips that count for the "no tax on tips" deduction: given freely in an occupation on the IRS's list and shown on a tax form. Service charges don't count.
Queue (support): Every support case still waiting for an answer. The team watches how many are waiting and how long the oldest has waited.
Quota: The sales a salesperson is expected to bring in over a set time, like a quarter or a year. Pay plans often pay more above it.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025

R

Ramp: The paved area around the planes, outside the terminal, where the ramp agents park planes, load bags and cargo, and push planes back.
Ramp-up: The months after opening while sales grow toward break-even. The business usually loses money in this stretch, so the budget has to cover it.
Ransomware: Harmful software that locks a business out of its computers or files until money is paid. Paying is no guarantee the files come back.; Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation · 2025
Rating factor: A fact about a customer that an insurer uses to set their price, such as years of driving, past crashes, miles driven or where the car is kept. Each state decides which ones are allowed.
Re-compete: When a contract you already hold comes up for bidding again. The firm doing the work has a head start: the client knows it.
Real (after inflation): A number with inflation taken out, so it shows what money actually buys. Sales that grew more slowly than prices are a real fall. The plain number, before that, is called nominal.
Reasonable accommodation: A change to a rule or policy that a person with a disability needs to use and enjoy their home, like allowing a guide dog in a building with a no-pets rule. Fair-housing law requires a landlord to make one when it's reasonable.; Source: Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School (text of the U.S. Code) · 2026
Reasonable compensation: The salary the IRS expects an S corporation to pay an owner who works in it, before any other payouts, judged partly by what comparable businesses pay for the same work.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Rebating (insurance): Giving a client part of the premium or the agent's commission back, or a gift, to win the sale. New York bans it, apart from small gifts; other states have their own rules.; Source: New York State Senate (Consolidated Laws of New York) · 2014
Rebooking: Booking a client's next visit before they leave the chair, so the date is already in the book.
Recall: Taking a product back from stores and customers because it's unsafe or breaks a rule: telling everyone who got it, then replacing, refunding or fixing it.
Receiver (of a failed bank): The agency that takes over a bank when it's closed, protects insured depositors and sells what it can. For an insured US bank, that's the FDIC.; Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) · 2026
Recession: A significant fall in economic activity that spreads across the economy and lasts more than a few months. In the US, a committee at the National Bureau of Economic Research dates them, months later.; Source: National Bureau of Economic Research · 2026
Recipe cost card: A card that lists every ingredient in a dish with what it costs, adds them up to the plate cost, and compares that with the menu price.
Reconciling an account: Matching a business's own records to its bank or card statement, line by line, and fixing whatever doesn't match.
Recruiter: The person on a company's people team who finds and screens candidates and runs the hiring steps. The hiring manager, who will be the new person's boss, makes the final choice.
Recurring revenue: Money that comes in again and again on a schedule, like monthly memberships or subscriptions, instead of one sale at a time.
Referral: A new client sent to you by someone who knows your work: a past client, a colleague, another firm. Referred clients already half trust you, so they're easier to win.
Referral fee: Amazon's share of each sale, a percent of the total the buyer pays. It changes by category.; Source: Amazon.com Services LLC · 2026
Refund limit: The most a support person may give back to a customer without asking anyone. Bigger amounts go to someone with a higher limit.
Regional airline: A smaller airline that flies short routes with smaller planes for a big airline, under the big airline's name. The big airline usually sets the schedule and prices, sells the seats and pays the regional airline by contract.
Registered agent: A person or firm with an address in the state where a company is formed, who receives legal papers and official mail for it. Delaware requires every corporation formed there to have one.; Source: State of Delaware · 2026
Regular: A client who keeps coming back, about every few weeks. A stylist's week is filled by regulars more than by first-time clients.
Regulation Best Interest: The SEC's rule for broker-dealers: when a salesperson recommends an investment to an everyday investor, it has to be in that investor's best interest, not the firm's. It covers each recommendation, not the whole relationship.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2019
Regulator: A government agency that writes rules for a kind of business and checks that companies follow them. Banks have several, each watching a different part.
Reinsurance: Insurance for insurance companies. An insurer pays a reinsurer to cover part of its losses above a set amount, for example from one big hurricane.
Reinsurance layer: A slice of a big loss that reinsurers agree to pay: everything above the insurer's retention, up to a limit. Losses above the top of the layer go back to the insurer.
Remanufactured part: A used part taken apart, cleaned, fixed with new pieces where needed and tested, then sold again, often with a warranty. It must be marked as remanufactured, never sold as new.; Source: Federal Trade Commission (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations)
Remittance advice: The statement that comes with a customer's payment, listing which invoices it pays and every deduction it took. Read it line by line.
Renewal commission: The commission an insurer pays an agent each time a policy the agent sold renews for another term, with no new sale needed. Commissions on a policy's first term are called new-business commissions.; Source: Goosehead Insurance, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Renewal option: Your right, written into the lease, to stay for another term when this one ends, often at a rent the lease sets out. Without one, the landlord can raise the rent as far as it likes, or rent your space to someone else.
Renewal rate: The share of members whose membership came due who paid for another year.
Rent cap: A legal limit on how much rent can rise for the same tenant in a year. Some states and cities have one, often with exemptions; most places have none.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2025
Rent escalation: A scheduled rent increase written into the lease: a set percent each year, a step every few years, or a link to inflation.
Rent escalation: A lease clause that raises the rent by a set amount or share every year of the lease.
Rent start date: The day rent is first due under a lease. It can be the day you sign, or later: when the city signs off on your build-out, or when you open, whichever comes first.
Renters insurance: A tenant's own insurance for their belongings and their liability. The landlord's insurance covers the building, not the tenant's things.; Source: California Department of Insurance · 2026
Reorder point: How much stock should be left when you place the next order: what you sell while the new order is on its way, plus a little extra.
Repair and deduct: A tenant's right, in some states, to fix a serious problem the landlord has left too long and take the cost off the rent, within limits the state sets.; Source: California Legislative Information · 1979
Repair order: A repair shop's paper for one car's visit: the customer, the car, the work asked for, and then the labor and parts it took. It becomes the final bill.
Representing a client (before the IRS): Speaking and acting for a taxpayer with the IRS: answering an examiner's questions, arguing an appeal, agreeing a payment plan. The client signs a form that names you. How much of it you may do depends on your credential.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Request for proposals (RFP): A formal invitation from a client, often a government or a big company, for several firms to send proposals for the same work. It's open to anyone, so it's usually harder to win than work someone sends you.
Resale certificate: A form a business gives its supplier to show it's buying goods to resell, so the supplier doesn't charge sales tax. The tax is collected later, from the final buyer.; Source: Printful Help Center · 2026
Research and development (R&D): In a software company's annual report, the people and money that go into building and improving the product: engineers, testers, designers and product managers, as each company groups them.
Reserve: Money set aside to pay the monthly costs while sales are still growing. It's part of the start-up budget, not a bonus.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration · 2026
Reserve (on call): A crew member who has no set trips and waits to be called in, to cover a sick colleague or a broken schedule. Most new flight attendants start on reserve.
Reserves (for a lender): Money a lender wants you to still have in the bank after buying, counted in months of the loan payment with tax and insurance. It stays yours; it shows you can pay through a bad month.; Source: Fannie Mae · 2024
Response time and fix time: Response time is how long until a tech starts on a request; fix time is how long until it works again. A promise to start is easier to keep, because nobody can promise how long an unknown problem takes.
Restaurant-level profit: What big chains report as their restaurants' own profit: sales minus food, staff, rent and running costs, before head office, equipment wear, interest and taxes. It's bigger than the company's profit.
Retail commission: A share of each product sale that a salon pays the stylist who sold it. In this lesson's example it's much smaller than the share of a service.
Retail sales: In a salon, the products sold for clients to take home, like shampoo or styling cream, as opposed to the services done in the chair.
Retainage: A part of each payment a construction client holds back until the whole project is finished and signed off, as a promise the work will be completed.
Retainer: A fee paid every month to keep a consultant available, often for a set number of hours.
Retaliation: Punishing someone at work, for example firing them or cutting their hours, because they complained about discrimination or harassment or helped someone else's complaint. It's against the law even when the complaint turns out to be wrong, as long as it was made in good faith.; Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission · 2016
Retention: Keeping the customers you already have: how many come back to buy again instead of drifting away.
Retention (reinsurance): The part of a loss an insurer pays itself before its reinsurance starts to pay, like a deductible for the insurance company. Not the same as keeping customers.; Source: Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund, State Board of Administration of Florida · 2026
Retirement savings plan: An account at work, often called a 401(k), where a worker saves part of each paycheck for retirement. Many employers add a match: a share of pay, put in on top.
Return label: A prepaid shipping label the store sends a customer so they can send an item back.
Return on ad spend: The money that players won by an ad campaign have brought in so far, as a share of what the campaign cost. One hundred percent means the ads have earned back their cost. Often shortened to ROAS.
Return on ad spend (ROAS): Sales divided by what the ads that brought them cost. Two means two dollars of sales for each ad dollar. It counts sales, not profit, so a ROAS above one can still lose money.
Return policy: A shop's own rules for returns: how many days, in what condition, who pays the return shipping, and whether you get money back or store credit.
Return rate: The share of sales that customers send back. Online, it's much higher than in stores, because shoppers can't try things on first.
Revenue: All the money a business takes in from selling things, before it pays any costs. Also called sales, or the top line.
Revenue management: What hotels and airlines call the work of setting prices night by night or flight by flight to earn the most from a fixed number of rooms or seats.
Revenue per daily active user: An app's revenue for a period, divided by the days in it and by its average daily users: what an average day's player brought in. Often shortened to ARPDAU.
Revenue per employee: A company's revenue for the year divided by the number of people it employs. A rough sign of how many people it needs to grow.
Revenue per seat mile: An airline's total revenue divided by its available seat miles: what it took in for each seat it flew one mile. Airlines call it TRASM.
RevPAR: Revenue per available room: room revenue divided by every room the hotel had, sold or empty. It equals the average daily rate times occupancy, so it rewards both price and filled rooms.
RFI (request for information): A written question from the builder to the architect when the drawings are unclear, missing something or don't fit what's on site. Each one is numbered, and the answer comes back in writing.
RICE score: One way to compare ideas for a product: how many people it reaches, times how much it helps each one, times how sure you are, divided by the work it takes. Intercom, a software company, made it known; many teams use it or something like it.; Source: Sean McBride, Intercom · 2018
Risk: Something that might go wrong, and what it would cost if it did. Owners can lower a risk, carry it themselves, or pay an insurer to carry it.
Roadmap: A product team's plan of what it will build now, next and later, and what it won't build. It shows the order of the work more than exact dates.
Routing: The list of steps a part goes through, in order, with the station for each step and the time it should take. Engineering writes it; planning schedules from it.
Royalty: A fee paid for using someone else's brand or idea, usually a percent of sales. Franchisees pay royalties to the company whose name is on the sign.
Run: One go of making the same thing, from setup to the last piece: a hundred brackets, fifty dozen rolls. Also called a production run or a batch.
Run cost: What each extra one costs to make once the setup is done: its materials and its time on the machine or the bench.
Runway: How many months a business losing money can keep going on the cash it has: the cash in the bank divided by what it loses each month.

S

S corporation: A corporation that chooses a special tax status so its profit passes through to its owners' own tax returns, avoiding the corporation's own income tax.
SAFE: A simple agreement for future equity: an investor pays now and gets shares later, at the next priced round, often with a cap on the price.
Safe harbor (estimated tax): The IRS's rule that you won't owe a penalty for paying too little during the year if your payments add up to a set share of this year's tax or of last year's tax, made on time.
Safety stock: Extra stock kept on hand as a cushion, in case sales run high or a delivery runs late.
Salaried pay: A set amount of pay for the year, paid in equal parts, whatever the hours or how busy the business is.
Sales channel: A place or way a business sells: its own website, a marketplace like Etsy, a craft fair, a local shop that stocks its goods.
Sales charge (load): A charge some mutual funds take when a client buys, as a share of the money invested. Part of it goes to the firm that sold the fund as a commission, and the share falls as the purchase gets bigger.; Source: Capital Group (filed with the SEC) · 2026
Sales cycle: How long a sale takes, from the first conversation with a possible customer to a signed order. Big customers usually take longer.
Sales development rep: A salesperson who finds possible customers, makes the first contact and checks whether they're worth chasing, then hands the good ones to an account executive.
Sales tax permit: A state's registration that lets a business collect its sales tax from buyers and send it in. Some states call it a seller's permit. You get one before you start collecting.
Sales tax permit: Permission from your state to collect sales tax from customers and pay it to the state. States call it different things, like a seller's permit or a certificate of authority.
Salon suite: A small private room for one stylist, rented in a building full of them. The renter gets their own door and sets their own hours and prices, but there's no front desk and no walk-ins.
Satisfaction score (CSAT): The average answer to one short question sent after a case is closed, such as "How did we do?" on a scale of one to five.
Say on pay: A US public company's shareholder vote on what its top executives are paid, held at least once every three years. It's advisory: the board doesn't have to follow it, but it shows what the owners think.; Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission · 2011
SBA-backed loan: A loan from a bank or other lender that the U.S. Small Business Administration partly guarantees, so the lender gets most of its money back if the borrower can't pay. You apply at the lender, not at the SBA.
Scale: How easily a business can serve many more customers. A business scales well when each extra customer adds little extra cost.
Scan-based trading: A deal where the store doesn't buy the product when it arrives: the maker owns it on the shelf, and the sale happens when a shopper's item is scanned at the till. Unsold product is the maker's problem.
Schedule C: The part of a sole owner's federal tax return that works out the business's profit: what it took in, minus the costs of running it.
Schedule C: The form a one-owner business attaches to the owner's own federal tax return to show its income and costs. The profit on it is what income tax and self-employment tax are figured on.
Schedule E: The page of a US income tax return (Form 1040) where an owner reports rent and the costs of a rental property. The result is added to the rest of their income.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Schedule of progress payments: The part of a construction contract that says how much the client pays at each stage of the work, and what has to be finished before each payment.
Scope creep: A project slowly growing past what was agreed, one small extra at a time, without the price growing with it.
Scope of work: Exactly what a job includes and what it doesn't, written into the estimate and the contract. Most arguments on a job are about the scope.
Scrap: Pieces that come out wrong and can't be sold: a part cut out of size, a burnt tray of rolls. Shops start a few extra to end up with enough good ones.
Screening report: A report a landlord buys, with the applicant's written OK, from a company that collects credit, rental or court records. Federal law sets rules for how it's used.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2023
SDK (software development kit): Ready-made code from another company that a developer adds to an app, such as an ad network's code that shows ads or an analytics tool that counts crashes. Whatever it collects counts as the app's own collection.
Sealed bid: A price sent in a sealed envelope, or its online version, by a deadline. All the bids are opened together, so nobody can see or beat another's price first.
Seasonality: Sales that rise and fall with the time of year: busy summers and holidays, slow stretches after New Year.
SEC: The Securities and Exchange Commission: the US government agency that watches over companies whose shares anyone can buy. Those companies file their yearly reports (the Form 10-K) with it, and anyone can read them free at sec.gov.
Section: The group of tables one server looks after during a shift. The host seats parties so each section gets new tables in turn.
Section 609 certification: The EPA's required training and test for anyone who services car air conditioning for pay. Each technician needs it, and the shop's refrigerant machine must be certified too.; Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2026
Section 83(b) election: A choice filed with the IRS to count shares that vest over time as income when you get them, instead of as they vest. It's due within thirty days, a limit set in the law.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2025
Security deposit: Money a tenant pays at move-in, held by the landlord to cover unpaid rent or damage beyond normal wear. Most of it goes back when the tenant moves out. States limit how much it can be and how fast it must be returned.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2025
Security deposit: Money a landlord or a utility holds when you sign up, in case you don't pay. You usually get it back at the end, so it's cash out now but not a cost.
Seed round: Usually a startup's first sizable round of outside money, sold for a slice of the company, to prove the product and find customers.
Segment: One part of a big company that it reports on separately in its annual report, with its own sales and profit, like a region or a line of business.
Segment Adjusted EBITDA: The profit Uber reports for each part of its business, like rides or deliveries, before company-wide costs, stock pay, depreciation and some one-time items. It isn't the same as operating income.
Self-employment tax: Social Security and Medicare tax that people who work for themselves pay on their profit, since no employer pays a share for them.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Self-perform: To do part of a job with your own crew instead of hiring a subcontractor for it.
Sell-through: How much of what you bought has sold so far, usually as a share. Owners compare it by size, color and design.
Seller note: A loan from the seller of a business to the buyer: the buyer pays part of the price later, in installments, often out of the business's own profit.
Seller's discretionary earnings (SDE): A small business's yearly earnings for one owner who works in it: its profit with the owner's own pay and personal perks added back. Your own pay, and any loan to buy it, still come out of it.
Semiconductor (chip): A tiny electronic part that computes or stores information. Cars, phones and game consoles are full of them.
Seniority: How long someone has worked at the airline in their job. At airlines it decides who gets first pick of routes, days off and home airport.
Separation of duties: Splitting a money job so no one person does every step. The person who pays the bills shouldn't also add new suppliers or match the bank, so one person can't both take money and hide it.
Series A: The round after the seed, usually the first led by a venture capital firm, raised once a startup shows customers want what it makes.
Service advisor: The person at a repair shop's front counter who talks to the customer: writes up the problem, explains the estimate, gets the customer's OK and goes over the bill. Also called a service writer.
Service credit: What a provider gives back when it misses the uptime it promised: usually days of service or part of the month's fee, not the customer's losses.
Service level agreement (SLA): The part of an IT contract that promises how fast you'll respond, often by how urgent the problem is, and sometimes what the client gets if you miss.
Service menu: A salon's list of services with the price of each, like a cut, a color or a blowout. Many salons post it where clients can see it, and some states require that.
Settlement: An agreement that ends a dispute or lawsuit, usually with one side paying the other, without a court deciding who was right.
Setup cost: What it costs to get a machine or a line ready to make something: programming, fitting the tools, a test piece, cleaning up after. Paid once per run, however many you make.
Setup funnel: The steps a new user goes through to start using a product, counted step by step: how many download it, make an account, finish setting it up and come back. Fewer people reach each step, so it narrows like a funnel.
Severance and release: Extra pay a company offers someone it lets go, often in return for a signed release: a promise not to sue the company over the job.
SG&A: Selling, general and administrative costs: what it takes to run the business, like staff, buildings, card fees and the head office, apart from the goods themselves.
Share buyback: When a company uses its cash to buy its own shares back from investors. The owners who stay own a bigger share of the company; the company's cash and its owners' stake both shrink.
Share class: A kind of share with its own rights. Some companies have classes with more votes per share, so a few people can control the company while owning only part of it.
Share who stop: Of the people or cars going past a spot, the share who come in and buy. Nobody publishes it for a spot you haven't opened, so it's your own guess: test a careful one.
Shared team: A team that works for the whole company rather than one business unit, like finance, legal, human resources or technology. Also called a corporate function.
Shareholder: Someone who owns shares of a company, and so owns a small piece of it. Shareholders vote to elect the board of directors.
Shelf life: How long something can be stored before it spoils or can't be sold. Fresh meat lasts days; canned goods last years.
Shift supervisor: The person who runs the floor for one shift: who works where, safety, the schedule and the problems. BLS calls the job first-line supervisors of production and operating workers.; Source: O*NET, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration · 2026
Shipping container: A standard steel box, usually twenty or forty feet long, that moves from ship to train to truck without being unpacked.
Shipping list: The list that comes with a delivery: every item and how many cases are on the truck. Receiving counts what came off against it before the driver leaves.
Shipping offer: Free or fast delivery a store gives instead of charging for it, like Prime's free shipping. Amazon's annual report counts these offers as a way to win customers, not as a business of their own.
Shop drawings: Detailed drawings a maker or subcontractor draws of exactly how it will build or install its part, such as the windows. The builder checks them, then the architect approves them before anything is made.; Source: Federal Acquisition Regulation (Acquisition.gov)
Shop foreman: The person who runs a repair shop's bays: hands out each job, helps technicians with hard problems and road-tests big repairs before cars go back. BLS calls the job a first-line supervisor of mechanics.
Shop rate: What a shop charges itself (and prices in) for an hour of a machine and the person running it. It covers wages, benefits, the machine, power, rent and the hours nobody pays for.
Short-term rental: A home rented by the night or the week, often through sites like Airbnb, instead of to one household for months at a time. Many cities set their own rules for them.
Shortage: When buyers want more than sellers have at the current price. Shelves empty out until the price rises or more arrives.
Single source: A part that only one supplier makes for you. If that supplier stops, so do you.
Skills matrix: A board or sheet showing which workers are trained on which machines or stations. A supervisor uses it to put people where they can work safely, and to see who needs cross-training.
Slot (at an airport): Permission to take off or land at a busy airport in a set time window. At a few crowded airports, like Reagan National and LaGuardia, an airline can't add flights without slots.
Slotting fee: Money a maker pays a grocery store to put a new product on its shelves. Often waived for bread and other goods delivered straight to the store.
Slow season: The months of the year with less work, winter for most trades. The crew still gets paid if you keep it.
Small claims court: A simple, cheap court for disputes over small amounts of money. Each state sets its own limit and rules.; Source: Judicial Branch of California (California Courts Self-Help Guide)
Smallwares: The small things a kitchen and dining room can't run without: pots, pans, knives, plates, glasses and cutlery. Cheap one by one, a real line in an opening budget all together.
Social Security wage base: The most earnings in a year that the Social Security part of payroll or self-employment tax applies to. Above it, only the Medicare part continues.
Soft opening: A few quiet days of real service before the official opening, often for neighbors, friends and invited guests, so a new crew can practice before the crowd comes.
Soft opening: Opening to the public quietly before the official opening day, often with a short menu and short hours, so the crew can practice on real guests.
Sole proprietor: Someone who owns a business on their own without forming a company. Legally the owner and the business are the same: its profit goes on the owner's tax return, and its debts are the owner's debts.
Sous chef: The kitchen's second in command. Supervises the cooks and runs the kitchen when the head chef is away.; Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · 2025
Spot rate: Today's price to ship something right now, as opposed to a price agreed in a contract for months ahead.
Spreading: Typing a business's tax returns and financial statements into the bank's own spreadsheet, line by line, so every borrower's numbers can be read the same way. The result is called the spread.
Staging: A practice copy of the software, set up like the real one, where a team tries new work before any customer sees it.
Stand-up: A short daily team meeting, often held standing so it stays short. Each person says what they did, what they'll do next and what's in their way.
Standard deduction: A set amount the IRS lets most people subtract from income before income tax is worked out. What's left is taxable income.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Start-up capital: The money a business needs before it can stand on its own: what it costs to open, plus what it costs to keep going until sales cover the bills.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2017
Statement of Information: California's regular report from each company: its address, its managers and its registered agent. Other states call theirs an annual report. Missing it can bring a penalty and, in time, the company's suspension.
Statutory damages: An amount set by law that a court can award for copying a registered work, without proving exactly how much harm it did.; Source: U.S. Copyright Office
Stickiness: Daily players divided by monthly players: how many of the people who use an app in a month use it on an average day. The higher it is, the more it's a daily habit.
Stock exchange: A marketplace where shares of public companies are bought and sold, like the New York Stock Exchange. The price is whatever a buyer and a seller agree at that moment.
Stock option: The right to buy a company's shares later at a price fixed today. A startup's options are worth something only if its shares end up worth more than that price.
Stock-based pay: Paying employees partly in the company's shares instead of cash. It costs the company no cash today, but it's counted as an expense, so it lowers operating income.
Stock-out: Running out of something customers want to buy. The sale is lost, and sometimes the customer too.
Stored value card: A gift card or app balance a customer loads with money and spends later. Until it's spent, the business owes the customer that coffee, so the money counts as a debt, not a sale.
Strategy: A company's plan for where it's going and how it will win there: which customers, which products, which places, and what it will stop doing. Setting it is one of the CEO's main jobs.
Structured interview: An interview where every candidate gets the same questions in the same order, and every answer is scored on the same scale.; Source: U.S. Office of Personnel Management
Structuring: Splitting cash into smaller amounts so the bank won't have to report it. It's against federal rules even when the money itself is honest, and so is helping someone do it.; Source: Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network rules) · 2026
Subcontractor: Another business hired to do part of a job, like the plumber or electrician on a remodel. Usually called a sub. The contractor who hired them is still responsible to the client.
Subsidiary: A company owned or controlled by another company, its parent. Big companies are often made up of many subsidiaries, each a separate company in law.
Succession plan: A board's plan for who could become the next CEO, and what happens if the current one leaves suddenly. Boards keep one long before they need it.
Sunk cost: Money already spent or promised that you can't get back, like rent you've signed for. Good decisions look at what will change, not at sunk costs.
Superintendent (construction): The person who runs a job site for the general contractor every hour it's open: which crews work where today, deliveries, inspections and safety on site. Often called the super.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, O*NET
Supplemental wages: Pay that isn't a worker's regular wages, like bonuses and commissions. When it's paid separately, an employer may hold back federal income tax from it at one flat rate.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Supplier: A business that sells you what you need to make or sell your own product: food, parts, packaging, goods for your shelves. A distributor is a supplier that collects goods from many makers and delivers them.
Supplier finance program: A big buyer's arrangement with a bank: the buyer pays on its long terms, and a supplier can choose to get paid early by the bank, for a fee.
Supply: How much of something sellers bring to market at each price. When something cuts it, like a disease on egg farms, there's less to sell at every price.
Supply agreement: A contract that sets the terms for many future orders between a buyer and a supplier: price, payment, delivery, quality and what happens when something goes wrong.
Supply chain: Every business and step that turns raw materials into a product and moves it to the buyer: farms, mills, factories, ships, trucks, warehouses and stores.
Support backlog: The support cases waiting at a given moment. A backlog that grows day after day means the team answers fewer cases than come in.
Support case: One customer's problem, tracked from their first message until it's fixed, with every reply kept together. Many support teams call it a ticket.
Support request: One call, email or chat from someone who needs help with their computer or software, logged so it can be tracked until it's fixed. IT people call these tickets.
Surety bond: A three-way promise: a surety company guarantees to your client (or the people you hire) that you'll do what you agreed. If you don't, the surety pays them, then collects from you. It protects them, not you.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration (Electronic Code of Federal Regulations)
Survival rate: The share of businesses that opened at the same time and are still open some years later.
SUTA (state unemployment tax): Unemployment tax an employer pays to its state. Each state sets its own rates and rules.
Switching cost: The hassle or cost of moving to a rival: setting things up again, losing rewards you've built up, learning a new way. The higher it is, the more customers stay.
System-wide sales: Everything sold under a brand's name: its own stores plus the franchised or licensed ones. The brand's own revenue is only its stores' sales plus the fees it collects.
Systemwide sales: Everything customers spend at all of a brand's locations, whoever owns them. The brand counts as revenue only its own stores' sales plus what franchisees pay it.

T

Table service: Servers take orders and bring food to the table. Also called full service.
Take rate: The share of what customers spend on a marketplace that the marketplace keeps as its own revenue. Uber's report calls its version revenue margin.
Take rate: A marketplace's revenue as a share of everything sold on it. It counts fees, ads and other services, so it's more than the fee on any one sale.; Source: Etsy, Inc. (filed with the U.S. SEC) · 2025
Take-home pay (net pay): What actually reaches the worker's bank account: gross pay minus taxes and everything else taken out of the paycheck.
Takedown notice: A notice to a website asking it to remove material that copies your work. Copyright law sets out how a site responds to keep its legal protection.; Source: U.S. Copyright Office
Takeover premium: How much more a buyer offers for each share of a company than the share's market price before the offer, usually given as a percent of that price.
Target market: The group of people a product is made and advertised for, like high school runners: not everyone, but the people it fits best.
Tariff: Another word for an import duty. People often use it for the extra duties a government adds on top of the regular rate, for some products or countries. Those extra ones change often.
Tax bracket: A band of income taxed at one rate. Income tax rises in steps: each rate applies only to the dollars inside its band.
Tax-exempt item: Something a state chooses not to tax, like clothing in Minnesota, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Which items are exempt changes from state to state.; Source: Minnesota Department of Revenue · 2026
Tech debt: Shortcuts and old code in a product that slow down every new change until someone takes time to fix them, the way a debt costs you until it's paid off.
Tech errors and omissions insurance (tech E&O): Insurance for a technology business that pays when a client says the firm's mistake or oversight cost them money, including the cost of defending the claim. Often sold together with cyber insurance.; Source: Insureon (an online insurance broker) · 2026
Term loan: A loan for a set amount, paid back in regular payments over a set number of years. Each payment covers some interest and some of the amount borrowed.
Termination fee: Money one side of a deal agrees in advance to pay the other if the deal is called off for certain reasons, such as accepting a better offer from someone else.
Testimonial: A client's own words about your work, used to win new clients. It has to be real and honest. If you gave the person anything for it, say so wherever you use it.
The books: A business's records of every sale and every payment: what came in, what went out, and what it was for. Today they're kept in accounting software.
The line: The row of cooking stations in a restaurant kitchen (grill, sauté, fry and so on), each worked by a line cook.
The pass: The shelf between the kitchen and the dining room where finished plates wait, under heat lamps, to be checked and carried out.
Third-party cover: The part of an insurance policy that pays when someone else claims or sues you, such as a client or the people whose data was stolen, including lawyers and settlements.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2026
Third-party logistics company: A company that stores another company's goods in its warehouse and picks, packs and ships its orders for a fee. Many small online stores use one instead of running their own warehouse.
Third-party seller: A business that sells its own goods on someone else's marketplace, like a small brand selling on Amazon. The marketplace counts only its fees as revenue, not the whole sale.
Three-legged stool: McDonald's own name for how it works: the company and its employees, its franchisees and its suppliers. If one leg is weak, the stool wobbles.
Three-week look-ahead: The superintendent's short plan of which crew works where, day by day, for the next few weeks, updated every week from the job's full schedule.
Throughput: How many drinks or orders your bar can make in an hour. In the morning rush it decides how much you can sell, however long the line is.
Tier 1 and tier 2 support: Tier 1 is the front line that answers every customer first and solves the common problems. Tier 2 is more experienced people who take the cases tier 1 can't solve.
Time and materials: Charging by the hour, plus costs like travel. The client pays for the hours the work really takes.
Time around a session: Work an employee does outside the class or training session itself: setting up, cleaning down, writing plans and reports, meetings. For an employee, it's paid work time.
Tip credit: In states that allow it, the part of a tipped worker's minimum wage an employer may count from their tips instead of paying it in cash.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
Tip pool: Tips shared among a group of workers. Federal rules limit who can be in it, and managers can never take a share.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
Tip reporting: An employee telling their employer, in writing, how much they got in cash tips, so the employer can take out the taxes. A business owner records tips as part of their own income instead.
Tipped employee: Under federal law, a worker who regularly gets more than a set amount in tips each month, such as a server or bartender.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division
Tolling charge: A fee a contract manufacturer charges for each item it makes when the customer supplies the materials. When the maker buys the materials itself, it's called turnkey.; Source: BellRing Brands, Inc. (filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) · 2025
Ton-mile: One ton of freight carried one mile. Dividing a carrier's revenue or cost by ton-miles lets you compare trucks, trains, ships and planes.
Tooling: The molds, dies, fixtures and printing plates made for one product. It's paid for once, often by the customer, and the agreement should say who owns it and where it goes if you leave.
Tracking (on Apple's App Store): Linking what an app learns about a user or device with data from other companies' apps or websites, for targeted ads or measuring ads, or sharing it with a data broker. An iPhone app must ask the user first, through Apple's App Tracking Transparency prompt.; Source: Apple Developer · 2026
Trade credit: Time a supplier gives you to pay for what it delivered, such as thirty days after the invoice. It's borrowing that usually costs nothing if you pay on time.
Trade deficit: When a country buys more from other countries than it sells to them in a year. The gap is the deficit.
Trade secret: Useful business information that's valuable because others don't know it, and that the business keeps secret on purpose. Protected as long as it stays secret.; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Trademark: A word, phrase, logo or design that tells shoppers who made a product. You own one by using it; registering it gives nationwide rights.; Source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Trademark class: One of the groups of goods and services the trademark office sorts applications into, such as clothing or bags. Fees are paid for each class you file in.
Traffic acquisition costs: What Google pays partners for bringing it searches and ad views: browser and phone makers that make Google their search, and websites that show Google's ads. Often shortened to TAC.
Traffic count (AADT): How many vehicles use a stretch of road on an average day, counted in both directions, all day long. Transportation departments publish it as annual average daily traffic (AADT).; Source: Minnesota Department of Transportation · 2026
Trail: A small yearly payment a fund makes to the firm that sold it, for as long as the client keeps the fund. It comes out of the fund's own assets and rises and falls with the fund's value.; Source: Capital Group (filed with the SEC) · 2026
Transaction fee: The share of each sale a marketplace keeps for selling your item there. Etsy's is charged on the shipping you charge too.; Source: Etsy, Inc. · 2026
Transactions: How many orders a shop takes: one per customer at the register. Sales are transactions times the average order.
Traveler: The work order that rides with a job's parts from station to station. It lists each step in order, and each station signs its line when its work is done. Also called a router or a job ticket.
Triage (support): Sorting incoming customer messages by what they need and how urgent they are, then answering each one or passing it to the team that can act on it.
Trust account: A bank account that holds money on someone else's behalf until a condition is met. California makes a new gym keep presale money in one until just after it opens, unless it posts a bond.; Source: California Legislative Information · 2026
Trust fund recovery penalty: An IRS penalty on a responsible person, someone in charge of a business's money, who willfully fails to send the government the taxes held back from workers' pay. It equals the unpaid amount, and the person owes it, not just the business.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Turn (turnaround): Everything that happens to a plane between landing at a gate and leaving it again: passengers off, cleaning, fuel, bags, checks, passengers on, pushback.
Turnover: How often workers leave a business and have to be replaced.

U

Unapproved change order: Extra or changed work done before the contractor and the client have agreed on its price.; Source: Tutor Perini Corporation (SEC EDGAR) · 2025
Underwriter: An investment bank that sells a company's new shares to investors in an offering, for a cut of the money raised.
Underwriting profit: What an insurer keeps from premiums after paying claims and running costs, before counting what it earns by investing.
Uniform Investment Adviser Law Exam (Series 65): The exam most states ask of a person who gives investment advice for a fee. It's a NASAA exam that FINRA runs, and no firm has to sponsor you to take it. Designations like the CFP can stand in for it.; Source: FINRA · 2026
Uninsured deposit: Money in a bank account above the FDIC insurance limit. If the bank fails, that part isn't guaranteed, so big depositors may rush out at the first sign of trouble.; Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) · 2026
Unlawful detainer: California's name for an eviction case: the court case a landlord files to get a rental back. Only a court order, carried out by the sheriff, can remove a tenant.; Source: Judicial Branch of California, Self-Help Guide · 2026
Unrealized loss: A loss on paper: something you own is worth less than you paid, but you haven't sold it yet. Selling turns it into a real loss.
Usability test: Watching a real person try to do something with your product, like setting up an app, while they say out loud what they're thinking. You don't help; you note where they get stuck.; Source: Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group · 2000
Usage-based insurance: Car insurance priced partly on how you actually drive, measured by an app or a plug-in device: braking, speed, time of day and miles.
Use clause: The line in a lease that says what you may do in the space, like "retail" or "pet grooming". Running a business it doesn't allow can break the lease.
Use of funds: The list, in a loan request, of exactly what the money will buy, adding up to the amount asked for.
Use tax: The tax a buyer owes their own state on something bought without sales tax, often from an out-of-state shop. It's the same rate as the sales tax, paid by the buyer instead of collected by the seller.
Used oil: Oil drained from engines and machines. Under federal rules it goes in containers marked "Used Oil", is mixed with nothing, and is picked up by a hauler with an EPA ID number to be recycled.; Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 2026
Useful life: About how many years a part of a building, like a roof or a water heater, lasts before it needs replacing. It's an average: climate, quality and care move it.; Source: Fannie Mae · 2014
Utilization: In a firm that sells time, the share of its people's hours that clients pay for. Hours billed divided by hours paid, though firms count it in slightly different ways.
Utilization (in a salon): The share of the hours a stylist is ready to work that are filled with clients' services. Empty, cancelled and no-show hours bring it down.

V

Vacancy rate: The share of homes for rent that sit empty. For an owner, the share of the year a home earns no rent, between one renter and the next.; Source: U.S. Census Bureau · 2026
Valuation: What a company is worth, as agreed in a deal. If an investor pays a sum for a share of a company, the whole is valued at that sum divided by the share.
Value pricing: Setting a price by what the thing is worth to the customer, like the time a tool saves or how much a day matters to them, not by what it costs you.
Value proposition: In one sentence, why a customer should buy from you: what you offer, for whom, and what makes it worth choosing.
Variable cost: A cost that grows with each sale, like the ingredients in each burger.
Variance: The gap between what you expected and what happened: this month against last month, or against your plan. Owners look for the lines with the biggest gaps first.
Vendor allowance: Money a supplier gives back to a store under the deal: for damaged goods, for ads and promotions, or as a rebate for selling a lot. Stores count it as lowering what the goods cost them.
Venture capital: Investment firms that put large sums into young companies that might grow very big, in exchange for a share of ownership. They expect most to fail and a few to pay for all the rest.
Verifiable parental consent: Under COPPA, a parent's yes collected in a way that makes it likely the person really is the parent, such as a signed form, a payment card transaction or a call with trained staff. A box a child can tick doesn't count.; Source: Federal Trade Commission · 2025
Vesting: Earning shares or options over time by staying at a company. Whatever hasn't vested when someone leaves goes back to the company.

W

Waitlist: Clients who want an earlier or busier time than is open. When someone cancels, the salon offers the slot to the next person on the list.
Walk-away price: The lowest price you'll accept, worked out before you talk price. Below it, the deal costs more than it brings in, so you say no.
Warehouse club: A store that charges a yearly membership to shop and sells a short list of items in bulk at low markups, like Costco, Sam's Club or BJ's.
Warm list: The people who already know you or your work: past customers, coworkers, neighbors, friends. A new business's first customers usually come from it.
WARN notice: Advance written notice a larger employer must give workers before closing a site or laying off many people at once.; Source: U.S. Department of Labor
Warranty: A promise about a product's quality, and what the seller will do (fix, replace or refund) if it falls short.
Weighted forecast: A guess at the sales a team will close, made by counting each open deal at its value times its chance of closing, then adding them up. The chance comes from how far the deal has got.
What an hour must bring in: Your pay and the chair's costs for a week, divided by the hours you'll really have booked. Each service's price starts from it: the hours it takes times this, plus the products it uses.
Wholesale cost: What the salon pays a distributor for a product it will sell. The difference between that and the shelf price is what the sale can leave.
Wholesale price: The price a maker charges a store or distributor, which then resells the product to shoppers at a higher shelf price.
Win rate: The share of your proposals that turn into signed work. Count only the ones that have been decided: a proposal still waiting for an answer isn't won or lost yet.
Win-back offer: An offer to bring back a member who already left, such as a lower rate or a free month to return.
Winner's curse: When many careful bidders price the same job, the lowest bid often comes from the one who missed a cost. Winning can mean you priced it wrong.
Withholding: Tax the employer takes out of each paycheck and sends to the government for the worker. The worker's Form W-4 and the IRS's tables decide how much.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Word of mouth: Customers telling friends and family about a business. It brings in new customers without paying for each one.
Work center: One machine, or one bench of people, that does one kind of work in a shop. Each has its own hourly rate, and a job is priced by the hours it spends at each.
Work made for hire: US copyright's name for work that belongs to whoever paid for it from the start: an employee's work for their job, or a few listed kinds of commissioned work when both sides sign saying so. Most of a consultant's work isn't, so a contract decides who owns it.; Source: U.S. Copyright Office
Work made for hire: Work the law treats as the employer's from the start: what an employee makes as part of the job, and a few listed kinds of commissioned work. Software from a contractor isn't one of those kinds.; Source: U.S. Government Publishing Office (govinfo) · 2023
Worker (UK): A group in UK employment law that includes employees and also some people who are self-employed but work personally for a business. Workers get rights such as the national minimum wage and paid holiday.; Source: legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives) · 1996
Worker classification: Deciding whether someone who works for you is an employee or an independent contractor. The IRS looks at who controls the work, the money side and the relationship, not at what you call it.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Workers' comp: Insurance that pays for medical care and lost pay when an employee is hurt at work. Each state sets its own rules.
Written information security plan: A tax or accounting practice's written plan for keeping client data safe and for what to do if it's stolen. Federal law requires one.; Source: Internal Revenue Service · 2026
Written repair estimate: The shop's written price for a repair, given before work starts: the parts, the labor and any other charges, in words the customer understands. Many states require one.

Y

Yearly plan paid up front: A subscription paid for a whole year at once, usually at a discount. The company gets the cash on day one, and the customer can only leave once a year.
Yield: How much of what you buy ends up on the plate, after trimming, peeling and cooking.
Your own methods: The templates, checklists, frameworks and know-how you bring to every client. A good contract hands the client what you made for them and lets them use your methods inside it, while you keep the methods.
YouTube Partner Program: YouTube's deal with the channels it pays. A channel that's big enough joins, accepts the terms, and gets a set share of the ad money and other income its videos bring in.; Source: YouTube Help · 2026

Z

Zoning: Local rules about what kind of business can go where. A building zoned for shops or offices may not allow manufacturing, so check with the city before you sign a lease.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration · 2026
Zoning: Local rules about what kind of business can go where. Check that a space is zoned for a restaurant before you sign a lease.; Source: U.S. Small Business Administration