Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States) in the context of "Financial Accounting Standards Board"

In accounting, goodwill is an intangible asset recognized when a firm is purchased as a going concern. It reflects the premium that the buyer pays in addition to the net value of its other assets. Goodwill is often understood to represent the firm's intrinsic ability to acquire and retain customer business, where that ability is not otherwise attributable to brand name recognition, contractual arrangements or other specific factors. It is recognized only through an acquisition; it cannot be self-created. It is classified as an intangible asset on the balance sheet, since it can neither be seen nor touched.

Under U.S. GAAP and IFRS, goodwill is never amortized for public companies, because it is considered to have an indefinite useful life. On the other hand, private companies in the United States may elect to amortize goodwill over a period of ten years or less under an accounting alternative from the Private Company Council of the FASB. Instead, management is responsible for valuing goodwill every year and to determine if an impairment is required. If the fair market value goes below historical cost (what goodwill was purchased for), an impairment must be recorded to bring it down to its fair market value. However, an increase in the fair market value would not be accounted for in the financial statements.

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are accounting standards issued by the IFRS Foundation and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). They constitute a standardised way of describing a company's financial performance and position so that company financial statements are understandable and comparable across international boundaries. They are particularly relevant for companies with publicly listed shares or securities.

IFRS have replaced many different national accounting standards around the world but have not replaced the separate accounting standards in the United States, where US GAAP is applied.

A company's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (commonly abbreviated EBITDA, pronounced /ˈiːbɪtdɑː, ˈɛb-/ EE-bit-dah, EB-it-dah) is a measure of a company's profitability of the operating business only, thus before any effects of indebtedness, state-mandated payments, and costs required to maintain its asset base. It is derived by subtracting from revenues all costs of the operating business (e.g. wages, costs of raw materials, services ...) but not decline in asset value, cost of borrowing and obligations to governments. Although lease have been capitalised in the balance sheet (and depreciated in the profit and loss statement) since IFRS 16, its expenses are often still adjusted back into EBITDA given they are deemed operational in nature.

Though often shown on an income statement, it is not considered part of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) by the SEC, hence in the United States the SEC requires that companies registering securities with it (and when filing its periodic reports) reconcile EBITDA to net income.

Materiality is a concept or convention within auditing and accounting relating to the importance/significance of an amount, transaction, or discrepancy. The objective of an audit of financial statements is to enable the auditor to express an opinion on whether the financial statements are prepared, in all material respects, in conformity with an identified financial reporting framework, such as the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) which is the accounting standard adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

As a simple example, an expenditure of ten cents on paper is generally immaterial, and, if it were forgotten or recorded incorrectly, then no practical difference would result, even for a very small business. However, a transaction of many millions of dollars is almost always material, and if it were forgotten or recorded incorrectly, then financial managers, investors, and others would make different decisions as a result of this error than they would have had the error not been made. The assessment of what is material – where to draw the line between a transaction that is big enough to matter or small enough to be immaterial – depends upon factors such as the size of the organization's revenues and expenses, and is ultimately a matter of professional judgment.

In accounting, an impaired asset is an asset which has a market value less than the value listed on its owner's balance sheet.

According to U.S. accounting rules (known as US GAAP), the value of an asset is impaired when the sum of estimated future cash flows from that asset is less than its book value. At this point an impairment loss should be recognized, which is done by taking the difference between the fair market value (FMV) and the book value and recording this amount as the loss. This basically records the asset as if it were being acquired brand new at its FMV, recording this as its new book value. This is a common occurrence for goodwill where a company will purchase a target company for more than the value of its net assets. Under US GAAP, goodwill is tested annually for impairment.