Accountants do like to have a number of words which mean the same thing. For example – fixed assets and capital assets, or long term and non-current. And let’s not forget the confusion of amortization and depreciation.
I have explained this to my students for years as smart marketing on behalf of professional accounting bodies. We get paid by the hour and if our stuff is complicated we get paid to explain it over and over again, which increases our revenue. Having said that, the words revenue and income mean different things.
Revenue is the top line of an income statement and income is the bottom line of the statement. Revenue is what we charge our customers and income is what we have left after expenses. The words are not interchangeable. So, if a government puts a program in effect that says you have to have $5,000 in income to apply, they mean income not sales. Every business owner should understand this, just in case there is another program available sometime.
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