Numbers dressed up in fancy suits pretending to be words.
Assets, liabilities, or financing activities that don't appear on the balance sheet through various legal structures and accounting loopholes. It's the financial equivalent of having a secret family—technically possible, but eventually problematic.
The degree to which a company's costs are fixed versus variable, determining how profits change with sales volume. High operating leverage means each additional sale drops straight to the bottom line—until sales drop and you discover fixed costs are indeed fixed.
Operating income divided by revenue, showing what percentage of sales remains after covering operating expenses but before interest and taxes. It's the profitability measure that reveals whether your business model works or you're just moving money around creatively.
The process of distributing indirect costs across products or departments, often using arbitrary methods that accountants swear are reasonable. It's making sure everyone shares blame for the heating bill and executive salaries.
A lease treated as a rental agreement rather than an asset purchase, historically kept off the balance sheet in a beautiful accounting loophole. Airlines loved these for planes; retail loved them for stores.
The time it takes to convert cash into inventory, inventory into receivables, and receivables back into cash—essentially how long your money is tied up in operations. Shorter is better unless you're a fine wine producer.