Luxury Lexicon 25 terms
Finance terms
The language of accounts, budgets and commercial reports used by luxury businesses.
A
- Accounts payable
- Amounts owed to suppliers, and the work of checking and paying those invoices.
- Accounts receivable
- Amounts owed by customers, and the work of recording and collecting them.
- Accrual
- Recognising income or an expense in the period it relates to, even when payment happens at another time.
- Average transaction value
- Sales value divided by the number of transactions during a period.
C
- CAPEX
- Capital expenditure: spending to acquire or improve assets expected to serve the business beyond the current period.
E
- ERP
- Enterprise resource planning: software that connects activities such as purchasing, inventory and finance through shared records.
F
G
- Gross margin
- The share of revenue remaining after the cost of goods sold has been deducted.
M
- Markdown
- A reduction from a product’s previous selling price.
- Month-end close
- The checks and accounting work used to complete a month’s financial records.
O
- Open-to-buy
- The remaining inventory purchasing budget for a period, based on planned sales, stock and existing commitments.
- OPEX
- Operating expenditure: the ongoing costs of running a business.
P
- P&L
- Profit and loss: a financial view of revenue, costs and the resulting profit or loss over a period.
- POS
- Point of sale: where a purchase is completed, and the equipment or software used to take payment and record the sale.
- Pro rata
- Pro rata means that an amount is calculated in proportion to a stated basis, such as contracted hours.
- Procurement
- Obtaining goods or services through supplier selection, purchasing and related controls.
R
- Reconciliation
- Comparing records and investigating differences so balances or transactions can be accounted for.
- ROI
- Return on investment: a measure comparing the return from an investment with its cost.
S
- S&OP
- Sales and operations planning: a regular process for aligning demand, supply and financial plans.
- Sales commission
- Sales commission is variable pay earned on sales under the terms of an employer’s pay scheme.
- SAP
- A business software provider whose products support activities such as finance, procurement and inventory.
- Sell-through
- Sell-through is the proportion of available stock sold over a stated period.
V
- Variance analysis
- Examining the difference between actual results and a budget, forecast or other comparison, and explaining its causes.
W
- Workplace pension auto-enrolment
- Automatic enrolment is the process by which an employer puts an eligible worker into a workplace pension scheme.