DIFD 321

Finance

WHAT IS MARKETING?

The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.

A Good Brand Answers:

GAAP

• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles

• The common set of accounting principles, standards and procedures that companies use to compile their financial statements. GAAP is a combination of authoritative standards (set by policy boards) and simply the commonly accepted ways of recording and reporting accounting information.

Basic Financial Statements

• Defined by GAAP

• Balance Sheet• The Income Statement and Profitability• The Statement of Cash Flows• Equity Statement

Break-Even Analysis

• Break-even analysis = A calculation of the approximate sales volume required to just cover costs.

• Breakeven Point = Fixed Costs/(Unit Selling Price - Variable Costs)

• Profit = Unit Selling Price - Variable Costs

• Contribution Margin = (Unit Selling Price - Variable Costs) / Unit Selling Price

BitCoin

• http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_kemp_robertson_bitcoin_sweat_tide_meet_the_future_of_branded_currency.html

More Accounting Terms

• Annual Report - Yearly statement of the financial condition, progress, and expectations of an organization.

• Auditing – reviewing and evaluating the records used to prepare a companies financial statements.

Accounting Tools

• Journal – record book in accounting

• Ledger – a specialized accounting book (software) in which information from accounting journals is reordered into categories.

• Double-entry bookkeeping – recording every entry in 2 places.

Financial Terms

• Depreciation – the systematic write-off of the cost of a tangible asset over its estimated useful life.

• Money – anything that people generally accept as payment for goods or services.

• Barter – the direct trading of goods or services for other goods or services.

• Federal Reserve – an organization that oversees the money supply of the United States.

SEC

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – a governmental organization that has responsibility at the federal level for regulating activities in the various exchanges.

Bonds and Stock

• Bonds – A corporate certificate indicating that a person has lent money to a firm.

• Stocks – Share of ownership in a company

• Mutual Funds – like an investment company, it pools investors’ money and then buys stocks or bonds in many companies… helps diversify.

Insurance

• Types:– Auto– Life– Health– Homeowners– Etc.

Term vs. Whole life

• Term – Pure insurance protection with no savings feature for a given number of years that typically costs less the younger you buy it.

• Whole life – Life insurance where some part of the money you pay goes towards pure insurance and another part goes towards saving, so you are buying both insurance and a savings plan.

IRAs

• IRA – Individual Retirement Account – Allows a person to save a percentage of their income tax free

• Roth IRA – an investment that does NOT get up-front tax deductions, however, the earnings are grown tax-free and are tax-free when you withdraw them.

• Limitations to IRAs = 59 ½ to withdraw and max contribution amounts

401K

• A savings plan that allows you to deposit pre-tax dollars and whose earnings compound tax free until withdrawal, when the money is taxed as ordinary income. Many companies also match a percentage of the pre-tax deposit.

Estate Planning

• Will – a document that names the guardians of your children, and how you want your assets distributed and names an executor for your estate.

• Executor – a person who assembles and values your estate, files income and other taxes and distributes the assets.

• Power of Attorney – a contract that gives signing power from one person to another to make decisions.

• Living Will - A document, made by a person when still legally fit to do so, expressing his desire to be allowed to die instead of being kept alive by artificial means, in the event of being severely disabled or suffering from a terminal illness

Home Work

• Using online research and templates… create a retirement plan. Decide when you want to retire, and how much % wise, you’ll need to save from the time you start your full-time career until your retirement date to make it happen. Including investment types, such as 401K, IRAs, Mutual Funds, etc.

• This should be at least 3-5 paragraphs.

Spaghetti Sauce

• http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html