Activity-Based Costing
What is ABC?
ABC is a costing method that assigns overhead and indirect costs to related products and services.
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Business glossary
Definitions for the terms your team is already using
Restore the finance, SaaS, and planning terms that matter during reviews, planning cycles, and weekly execution.
Account-Based Marketing
What is ABM?
A strategy in which a marketing team treats an individual prospect or customer like its very own market.
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Average Revenue Per User
What is ARPU?
A measure used primarily by consumer communications and networking companies to calculate the revenue generated per user or unit.
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Annual Recurring Revenue
What is ARR?
The revenue that a company expects to receive on an annual basis from its customers for ongoing services.
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Business to Business
What is B2B?
A type of transaction that exists between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer.
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Business to Consumer
What is B2C?
A type of transaction in which businesses sell products or services directly to consumers.
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Break-Even Point
What is BEP?
BEP is the point at which total cost and total revenue are equal, meaning there is no net loss or gain.
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Bill of Materials
What is BOM?
BOM is a comprehensive list of materials, components, and assemblies required to create a product.
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Bill of Materials Cost
What is BOMC?
BOMC refers to the total cost of all materials listed in the BOM.
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Business Process Reengineering
What is BPR?
BPR involves the radical redesign of core business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in productivity, cycle times, and quality.
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Balanced Scorecard
What is BSC?
A performance management tool that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff within their control and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.
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Customer Acquisition Cost
What is CAC?
The cost associated with acquiring a new customer.
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Compound Annual Growth Rate
What is CAGR?
CAGR is the mean annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year.
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Capital Expenditures
What is CAPEX?
CAPEX are the funds used by a company to acquire, upgrade, and maintain physical assets such as property, buildings, or equipment.
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Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
What is CIM?
CIM is a method of manufacturing in which the entire production process is controlled by computer.
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Customer Lifetime Value
What is CLV?
The total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account throughout the business relationship.
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Cost of Goods Sold
What is COGS?
COGS refers to the direct costs attributable to the production of the goods sold by a company.
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Cost Per Action
What is CPA?
CPA is an online advertising strategy that allows an advertiser to pay for a specified action from a prospective customer.
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Cost Per Thousand
What is CPM?
CPM is a marketing term used to denote the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage.
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Customer Relationship Management
What is CRM?
A strategy for managing a company's interactions with current and potential customers.
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Critical Success Factor
What is CSF?
An element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission.
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Click-Through Rate
What is CTR?
CTR is a ratio showing how often people who see your ad or free product listing end up clicking it.
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Discounted Cash Flow
What is DCF?
A valuation method used to estimate the value of an investment based on its expected future cash flows.
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Days Sales Outstanding
What is DSO?
A measure of the average number of days that it takes a company to collect payment after a sale has been made.
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Earnings Before Interest and Taxes
What is EBIT?
EBIT is an indicator of a company's profitability, calculated as revenue minus expenses, excluding tax and interest.
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Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization
What is EBITDA?
EBITDA is a measure of a company's overall financial performance.
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End of Day
What is EOD?
EOD refers to the final moments of the business day.
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End of Month
What is EOM?
EOM refers to the final day of the month in financial contexts.
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End of Year
What is EOY?
EOY refers to the conclusion of a calendar year.
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Enterprise Resource Planning
What is ERP?
A type of software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities.
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Environmental, Social, and Governance
What is ESG?
ESG criteria are a set of standards for a company’s operations that socially conscious investors use to screen potential investments.
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Foreign Direct Investment
What is FDI?
FDI is an investment made by a firm or individual in one country into business interests located in another country.
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First In, First Out
What is FIFO?
FIFO is an asset-management and valuation method in which assets produced or acquired first are sold, used, or disposed of first.
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Fiscal Year
What is FY?
A one-year period that companies and governments use for financial reporting and budgeting.
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Gross Merchandise Value
What is GMV?
The total sales dollar value for merchandise sold through a marketplace over a certain time frame.
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Ideal Customer Profile
What is ICP?
A description of the firmographic, environmental and behavioral attributes of accounts expected to become a company’s most valuable customers.
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Initial Public Offering
What is IPO?
IPO is the process of offering shares of a private corporation to the public in a new stock issuance.
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Internal Rate of Return
What is IRR?
A metric used in capital budgeting to estimate the profitability of potential investments.
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Just-in-Time
What is J-IT?
Just-in-Time is an inventory management strategy that aligns raw-material orders from suppliers directly with production schedules.
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Key Performance Indicator
What is KPI?
A KPI is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.
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Last In, First Out
What is LIFO?
LIFO is an asset-management and valuation method in which the assets produced or acquired last are the first to be used, disposed of, or sold.
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Long-Term Debt
What is LTD?
LTD refers to loans and financial obligations lasting over one year.
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Lifetime Value
What is LTV?
The predicted net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.
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Mergers and Acquisitions
What is M&A?
M&A refers to the consolidation of companies or assets through various types of financial transactions.
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Management by Objectives
What is MBO?
A management model that aims to improve the performance of an organization by clearly defining objectives that are agreed to by both management and employees.
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Month over Month
What is MoM?
A measure of growth comparing the current month with the previous month.
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Marketing Qualified Lead
What is MQL?
A lead that has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads based on lead intelligence, often informed by closed-loop analytics.
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Monthly Recurring Revenue
What is MRR?
The revenue that a company expects to receive on a monthly basis from its customers for ongoing services.
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Minimum Viable Product
What is MVP?
A product with enough features to attract early adopters and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle.
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Net Promoter Score
What is NPS?
A metric that measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking customers how likely they are to recommend a company's product or service to others.
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Net Present Value
What is NPV?
NPV is the difference between the present value of cash inflows and the present value of cash outflows over a period of time.
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Objectives and Key Results
What is OKR?
A framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes.
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Operating Expenses
What is OPEX?
OPEX are the expenses a business incurs through its normal business operations.
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Private Equity
What is PE?
PE is composed of funds and investors that directly invest in private companies, or that engage in buyouts of public companies, resulting in the delisting of public equity.
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Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental
What is PESTLE?
A tool used to analyze the external environment of an organization.
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Project Management Office
What is PMO?
A group or department within a business that defines and maintains project management standards.
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Production and Operations Management
What is POM?
POM involves the planning, organization, and supervision of production and manufacturing processes.
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Quarter to Date
What is QTD?
The period beginning at the start of the current quarter up to the current date.
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Research and Development
What is R&D?
The activities that companies undertake to innovate and introduce new products and services.
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Radio-Frequency Identification
What is RFID?
RFID uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects.
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Request for Proposal
What is RFP?
RFP is a document that solicits proposal, often made through a bidding process, by an agency or company interested in procurement of a commodity, service, or valuable asset.
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Request for Quotation
What is RFQ?
RFQ is a business process in which a company or public entity requests a quote from a supplier for the purchase of specific products or services.
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Return on Assets
What is ROA?
An indicator of how profitable a company is relative to its total assets.
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Return on Equity
What is ROE?
A measure of the profitability of a business in relation to the equity.
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Return on Investment
What is ROI?
ROI is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment.
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Software as a Service
What is SaaS?
A software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.
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Scrum
What is SCRUM?
Scrum is an agile process framework for managing complex knowledge work, with an initial emphasis on software development.
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Selling, General, and Administrative Expenses
What is SG&A?
The sum of all direct and indirect selling expenses and all general and administrative expenses of a company.
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Service Level Agreement
What is SLA?
SLA is a commitment between a service provider and a client that defines the level of service expected from the service provider.
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Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound
What is SMART?
A set of criteria to guide in the setting of objectives.
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Small and Medium-sized Business
What is SMB?
SMB refers to businesses that fall below certain revenue, asset, or employee thresholds.
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Sales Qualified Lead
What is SQL?
A prospective customer that has been researched and vetted—first by an organization's marketing department and then by its sales team—and is deemed ready for the next stage in the sales process.
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Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
What is SWOT?
A framework for identifying and analyzing the internal and external factors that can impact the viability of a project, product, place, or person.
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Total Cost of Ownership
What is TCO?
TCO is a financial estimate intended to help buyers and owners determine the direct and indirect costs of a product or system.
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Total Quality Management
What is TQM?
TQM is a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction.
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Venture Capital
What is VC?
VC is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential.
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Weighted Average Cost of Capital
What is WACC?
WACC is a calculation of a firm's cost of capital in which each category of capital is proportionately weighted.
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Year over Year
What is YoY?
A method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results at one period with those of a comparable period on an annualized basis.
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Year to Date
What is YTD?
The period beginning the first day of the current calendar year up to the current date.
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