13 Canadian tax & accounting terms starting with A
Plain-language definitions, each with the CRA rule it comes from and the filings it affects.
Accounts Payable
Accounts payable is the money your business owes to suppliers and vendors for goods or services received but not yet paid for.
Accounts Receivable
Accounts receivable is the money owed to your business by customers for goods or services you have delivered but not yet been paid for.
Accrual Accounting
Accrual accounting records revenue when it is earned and expenses when they are incurred, regardless of when cash actually changes hands.
Accrued Liabilities
Accrued liabilities are expenses a business has incurred but not yet paid or been billed for, recorded so the period reflects all costs it actually generated.
Accumulated Depreciation
Accumulated depreciation is the total depreciation charged against an asset since it was acquired, a contra-asset account that reduces the asset's book value on the balance sheet.
Adjusted Cost Base (ACB)
The adjusted cost base is the tax cost of a capital property, its original purchase price plus acquisition costs and certain adjustments, used to calculate a capital gain or loss on sale.
Adjusting Entry
An adjusting entry is a journal entry made at the end of a period to record revenue earned or expenses incurred that have not yet been captured, so the statements are accurate.
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts
The allowance for doubtful accounts is a contra-asset estimating the portion of receivables not expected to be collected, so the balance sheet shows realistic collectible value.
Amortization
Amortization spreads the cost of an intangible asset, or the repayment of a loan, over time rather than recognising it all at once.
Angel Investor
An angel investor is a wealthy individual who invests their own money in early-stage startups, usually in exchange for equity, at an earlier stage than venture capital firms.
Articles of Incorporation
Articles of incorporation are the founding legal document that creates a corporation, setting out its name, share structure, and basic governance rules.
Asset
An asset is anything of value your business owns or controls that is expected to provide future economic benefit, from cash to equipment to intellectual property.
Attribution Rules
The attribution rules prevent income splitting by taxing income back to the person who transferred property to a spouse or minor child, rather than the lower-income recipient.
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