What Is an Accountable Plan? An accountable plan is a plan that follows the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulations for reimbursing workers for business expenses in which reimbursement is not counted as income. This means that reimbursements are not subject to withholding taxes or W-2 reporting. However, these expenses must be business-related to fall under
What is Account Aggregation? Account aggregation is a process in which data from many—or all—of an individual’s or household’s financial accounts are collected in one place. It is also referred to as financial data aggregation. For example, an online banking service may provide a home page on which account holders can see information from all
What Is an Accountant? The term accountant refers to a professional who performs accounting functions such as account analysis, auditing, or financial statement analysis. Accountants work with accounting firms or internal account departments with large companies. They may also set up their own, individual practices. After meeting state-specific educational and testing requirements, these professionals are
What Is the Accountants’ Index? The Accountants’ Index is a collection of articles, books, and other materials of interest to accounting professionals. The Index is released by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), which publishes new material on a quarterly and annual basis. The purpose of the Accountants’ Index is to keep accounting
What Is an Accountant’s Opinion? An accountant’s opinion is a statement written by an independent certified accountant expressing its view regarding the quality of information contained in a set of financial reports. For audits in the United States, the opinion may be unqualified, qualified or adverse. Judgments vary and are based on how much a
What Is an Account Balance? An account balance is the amount of money present in a financial repository, such as a savings or checking account, at any given moment. The account balance is always the net amount after factoring in all debits and credits. An account balance that falls below zero represents a net debt—for
What Is an Account Executive? An account executive is an employee who is primarily responsible for an ongoing business relationship with a client. Account executives are most commonly found in advertising, public relations, and financial services. In addition, technology companies that provide hardware and software support services assign account executives to significant customers. Key Takeaways
What Is an Account Freeze? An account freeze is an action taken by a bank or brokerage that prevents some transactions from occurring in the account. Typically, any open transactions will be canceled, and checks presented on a frozen account will not be honored. However, the account holder can still deposit money into the account.
What Is an Account History? An account history is a running record of all of the financial transactions logged in a bank, credit card, or investment statement. In a bank or credit card statement, the account history records all credits and debits. In a statement from a broker, it records all purchases and sales of
What Is Accounting? Accounting is the process of recording financial transactions pertaining to a business. The accounting process includes summarizing, analyzing, and reporting these transactions to oversight agencies, regulators, and tax collection entities. The financial statements used in accounting are a concise summary of financial transactions over an accounting period, summarizing a company’s operations, financial
