S
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sale | Any exchange of goods or services for money. |
| Sale-leaseback Transaction | Sale of property by a seller who simultaneously leases the property back from the purchaser. |
| Sales Discount | A discount that is given to a buyer for early payment for a sale made on credit. |
| Sales Tax | A tax that is levied by a state or city government on the retail sale of goods and services. |
| Salvage Value | Selling price assigned to retired fixed assets or merchandise unsalable through usual channels. |
| SAS | Statements issued by the accounting standards board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). |
| Savings Bond | U.S. government bond issued in face value denominations ranging from $50 to $10,000. |
| Sell Out | Liquidation of a margin account by a broker after a margin call has failed to produce additional equity to bring the margin to the required level. |
| Selling, General, and Administrative (SG&A) Expenses | Grouping of expenses reported on a company’s profit and loss statement between cost of goods sold and income deductions. |
| Sensitivity Analysis | Study measuring the effect of a change in a variable on the risk or profitability of an investment. |
| SEP Plan | Pension plan in which both the employee and the employer contribute to an individual retirement account (IRA). |
| Separate Entity | A business that is treated as distinct from its creditors, customers, and owners. |
| Serial Bond | Bond issue, usually of a municipality, with various maturity dates scheduled at regular intervals until the entire issue is retired. |
| Settlement Method | Method of accounting for securities whereby transactions Are recorded on the date the securities settle by the delivery or receipt of securities and the receipt or payment of cash. |
| SFAS | Statements issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). |
| Shadow Price | The estimated price of goods or a service for which no market price exists. |
| Share | Unit of equity in a corporation. |
| Shareholder | Owner of one or more shares of stock in a corporation. |
| Shares Authorized | Number of shares of stock provided for in the articles of incorporation of a company. |
| Shares Outstanding | The number of shares in a company that have been issued and remain in circulation. |
| Short Bond | Bond with a short maturity; a somewhat subjective concept, but generally meaning two years or less. |
| Short Coupon | Bond interest payment covering less than the conventional six-month period. |
| Short Interest | Total amount of shares of stock that have been sold short and have not yet been repurchased to close out short positions. |
| Short Sale | Sale of an item before it is purchased. A person entering into a short sale believes the price of the item will decline between the date of the short sale and the date he or she must purchase the item to deliver the item under the terms of the short sale. |
| Short-Term Debt | All debt obligations coming due within one year; show on a balance sheet as current liabilities. |
| Short-Term Gain or Loss | For tax purposes, the profit or loss realized from the sale of securities or other capital assets held six months or less. |
| Short-Term Investment | The temporary investment of excess cash, intended to be held until needed to pay current obligations. |
| SIA | Trade group that represents broker-dealers. |
| Significant Accounts | An account is significant if there is more than a remote likelihood that the account could contain misstatements that individually or when aggregated with others, could have a material effect on the financial statements, considering the risks of both overstatement and understatement. |
| Simple Interest | Interest calculation based only on the original principal amount. |
| Simple Plans | An employer may adopt a simplified retirement plan called a simple plan (savings incentive match plan for employees) if it has fewer than 100 employees that received at least $5,000 in compensation in the preceding year. |
| Simple Trust | This type of trust is required to distribute all its income currently, whether or not the trustee actually does so, and it has no provision in the trust instrument for charitable contributions. It is to be distinguished from a complex trust. A trust may be a simple trust in one year and a complex trust in another year. In the year in which the trust distributes its corpus, it loses its classification as a simple trust. |
| Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) Plan | Pension plan in which both the employee and the employer contribute to an individual retirement account (IRA). |
| Single Audit Act | The Single Audit Act of 1984 and the Single Audit Act Amendments of 1996 establish requirements for audits of states, local governments, and non-profit organizations that administer federal financial assistance programs above a certain threshold. |
| Single-Premium Deferred Annuity (SPDA) | Tax-deferred investment similar to an individual retirement account (IRA), without many of the IRA restrictions. |
| Sinking Fund | Money accumulated on a regular basis in a separate custodial account that is used to redeem debt securities or preferred stock issues. |
| Slush Fund | Money kept to one side to give to people to persuade them to do what you want. |
| Small Business Stock | Non-corporate investors may exclude up to 50 percent of the gain they realize on the disposition of qualified small business stock issued after Aug. 10, 1993, and held for more than five years. The amount of gain eligible for the 50 percent exclusion is subject to per-issuer limits. In order to qualify for the exclusion, the corporation issuing the stock must be a C corporation (but excluding certain investment corporations) and it must use at least 80 percent of its assets in active conduct of one or more qualified trade or businesses. In addition, its gross assets cannot exceed $50 million. |
| Soft Currency | The currency of a country with a weak economy, which is cheap to buy and difficult to exchange for other currencies. |
| Soft Landing | A change in economic strategy to counteract inflation, which does not cause unemployment or a fall in the standard of living, and has only minor effects on the bulk of the population. |
| Soft Loan | A loan from a company to an employee or from one government to another at a very low rate of interest or with no interest payable at all. |
| Solvency | The state of being able to meet maturing obligations as they come due. |
| Solvent | Capable of paying one’s financial obligations. |
| SPDA | Tax-deferred investment similar to an individual retirement account (IRA), without many of the IRA restrictions. |
| Special Assessment | Charge made by a local government for the cost of an improvement or service. It is usually levied on those who will benefit from the service. |
| Special Report | A term applied to auditors’ reports issued in connection with various types of financial presentations, including financial statements that Are prepared in conformity with a comprehensive basis of accounting other than generally accepted accounting principles, specified elements, accounts or items of a financial statement, compliance with aspects of contractual agreements or regulatory requirements related to audited financial statements, financial presentations to comply with contractual agreements or regulatory provisions, and financial information presented in prescribed forms or schedules that require a prescribed form of auditor’s reports. |
| Specialist | Member of a stock exchange who maintains a fair and orderly market in one or more securities. |
| Specialized Mutual Fund | A fund that limits its investments to a particular sector of the marketplace. |
| Specific Identification Method | A way of pricing the cost of inventory as coming from a specific purchase. |
| Speculation | The assumption of risk in anticipation of gain but recognizing a higher than average possibility of loss. |
| Spinoff | Transfer of all, or a portion of, a subsidiary’s stock or other assets to the stockholders of its parent company on a pro rata basis. |
| Split Offering | New municipal bond issue, part of which is represented by serial bonds and part by term maturity bonds. |
| Spot Market | Market for buying and selling commodities or financial instruments for immediate delivery and payment based on the settlement conventions of the particular market. |
| Spread | The difference between two prices, usually a buying and selling price. |
| Spreadsheet | An accounting or bookkeeping application for use on a computer. |
| SSARS | Statements issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that specifically relate to reviews and compilations. |
| Standard | A widely known and accepted measurement or weight used as a basis for a system of measurements. |
| Standard Cost | Realistic costs for direct materials, direct labor, and factory overhead that have been determined before they occur. |
| Standard Deduction | For individual taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions, an amount by which to reduce adjusted gross income in arriving at taxable income. The amount of the standard deduction varies by the type of taxpayer and changes each year. |
| Standard Deviation | A statistical measure of the degree to which an individual value in a probability distribution tends to vary from the mean of the distribution. |
| Start-Up Costs | (1) Costs, excluding acquisition costs, incurred to bring a new unit into production. (2) Costs incurred to begin a business. |
| Stated Value | Per share amount set by the board of directors to be placed in the capital stock account upon issuance of no-par value. |
| Statement | A summary for customers of the transactions that occurred over the preceding month. |
| Statement of Cash Flows | One of the basic financial statements that is generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) required as part of a complete set of financial statements prepared in conformity with. It categorizes net cash provided or used during a period as operating, investing, and financing activities, and reconciles beginning and ending cash and cash equivalents. |
| Statement of Cost of Goods Manufactured | A formal statement summarizing the flow of all manufacturing costs incurred during an accounting period. |
| Statement of Financial Accounting Standards (SFAS) | Statements issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). |
| Statement of Financial Condition | Basic financial statement, usually accompanied by appropriate disclosures that describe the basis of accounting used in its preparation and presentation as of a specified date, the entity’s assets, liabilities and the equity of its owners. Also known as balance sheet. |
| Statement of Owner’s Equity | The financial statement that shows how and why an owner’s equity, or capital, account has changed over a specific financial period. |
| Statements on Auditing Standards (SAS) | Statements issued by the Accounting Standards Board of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). |
| Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS) | Statements issued by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that specifically relate to reviews and compilations. |
| Status Quo | The state of things as they Are now or the contract does not alter the status quo. |
| Statute of Limitations | This sets out the period within which actions may be brought upon claims or within which rights may be enforced. As it pertains to tax returns, the statute of limitations is generally three years from the date a return is due or filed. |
| Stepped Up Basis | Generally, the basis of property acquired by inheritance, bequest or device from a descendant is the fair market value of the property on the date of the descendant’s death. Thus, if the fair market value is more than the decedent’s basis, a taxpayer’s basis in the property received is stepped-up. |
| Stock Valuation | An estimation of the value of stock at the end of an accounting period. |
| Stock Compensation Plan | A fringe benefit that gives employees the option to purchase the employer’s stock at a specified price during a specified period. |
| Stock Exchange | An organized marketplace in which stocks, common stock equivalents, and bonds are traded by members of the exchange, acting both as agents and principals. |
| Stock Market | A general term referring to the organized trading of securities through the various exchanges and the over-the-counter market. |
| Stock Options | The right to purchase or sell a specified number of shares of stock at specified prices and times. |
| Stock Rights | Rights issued to stockholders of a corporation that entitle them to purchase new shares of stock in the corporation for a stated price that is often substantially less than the fair market value of the stock. These rights may be exercised by paying the stated price, may be sold, or may be allowed to expire or lapse. Stock rights are generally treated as stock dividends. |
| Stock Split | Increase in the number of shares of a company’s common stock outstanding that results from the issuance of additional shares proportionally to existing stockholders without additional capital investment. The par value of each share is reduced proportionally. |
| Stockholder | A person who owns shares of stock in a company. |
| Stockholders’ Equity | The owner’s equity in a corporation. |
| Stop-Loss Order | An instruction to a stockbroker to sell a share if the price falls to a specified level. |
| Straddle | A spread, the difference between bid and offer price. |
| Straight-Line Depreciation | An accounting method that reflects an equal amount of wear and tear during each period of an asset’s useful life. For instance, the annual straight-line depreciation of a $2,500 asset expected to last five years is $500. |
| Straight-Line Percentage | A percentage used to determine the amount of depreciation to be recorded each accounting period for the straight-line method. |
| Strike Price | The price of a financial instrument at which conversion or exercise occurs. |
| Subsequent Event | A material event that occurs after the end of the accounting period and before the publication of an entity’s financial statements. Such events are disclosed in the notes to the financial statements. |
| Subsidiary | A company of which more than 50% of the voting shares are owned by another corporation, called the parent company. |
| Sum-of-the-Years-Digits Method | An accelerated method of depreciation in which the depreciable value of an asset is multiplied by a decreasing fraction each year of the asset’s useful life. |
| Sunk Cost | A cost which has been irreversibly incurred or committed prior to a decision point and which cannot, therefore, be considered relevant to subsequent decisions. Also called consumed cost. |
| Support Price | A price in the EU at which a government will buy agricultural produce to stop the price from falling. |
| Surcharge | An extra charge. |
| Surety | A person who guarantees that someone will do something. |
| Surplus | Not needed; extra. |
| Surtax | An extra tax on high income. |
| Surviving Spouse | This is a person whose husband or wife died during the tax year. A surviving spouse may file a joint return for the year in which the death occurred. In addition, a joint return may be filed for the two succeeding tax years if during that time the surviving spouse: 1. Remains unmarried; and 2. Maintains as his home a household that is the principal place of abode during the entire tax year for a child for whom a dependency exemption may be claimed. |
| Suspense Account | An account into which payments are put temporarily when the accountant cannot be sure where they should be entered. |
| Swap | A financial contract in which two parties agree to exchange net streams of payments over a specified period. The payments are usually determined by applying different indices (e.g., interest rates, foreign exchange rates, equity indices) to a notional amount. The term notional is used because swap contracts generally do not involve exchanges of principal. |