The annual federal unemployment tax return. A 940EZ version is supposed to be EZ-er to fill out.

The quarterly federal payroll tax form that tells the IRS what federal employee payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, and Federal withholding tax) you've collected and remitted.

The quarterly payroll tax form that tells the IRS what domestic employee payroll taxes an employer has collected and remitted.

In Quicken, a list of the increases and decreases in an asset's value or in a liability's balance.

The value of an asset or the outstanding principal owed for a liability. For example, the value of a checking account is the cash value of the account. The balance of a mortgage liability is the principal you still owe.

An amount you move from one account (such as a checking account) to another (such as a savings account).

Different Quicken versions, or types, of accounts. There are accounts both for keeping records of the things you own (checking, saving, money market, cash, brokerage, IRA or Keogh, 401(k), dividend reinvestment plan, other investments, house, and vehicle), and for keeping records of the amounts you owe (credit card and liability).

The list of accounts and hyperlinks that appears in a vertical list along the left edge of the Quicken program window. If you click an account hyperlink, Quicken displays the account in a register.

In a business, the amounts you owe your trade creditors — your landlord, the office supplies store, the distributor from whom you purchase your inventory, and so on. People who prefer monosyllabic speech often refer to accounts payable as A/P.

In a business, the amounts your customers or clients owe you. People who prefer monosyllabic speech often refer to accounts receivable as A/R.

The itsy-bitsy principal payments you make over the course of repaying a loan. Eventually, these principal reductions pay off the loan.

An acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. People usually use the term to refer to files — in other words, ASCII files — that contain just regular old text: letters, numbers, symbols from the keyboard, and so on.

Making a copy. If something terrible happens — fire, hard drive failure, thermonuclear exchange — you still have a copy on removable media, such as CDs, DVDs, or flash drives, safely stored away from your computer, preferably offsite.

The steps you take to explain the difference between what your records show as a balance and what the bank's records (statements) show as a balance. Also referred to as reconciling an account.

Someone who keeps the "books," or financial records.

A Quicken account specifically set up to track a brokerage account that you use to invest in securities. Unlike a mutual fund account, a brokerage account includes a cash element. See also account type.

A plan that says how you will make and spend money.

The money a sole proprietor leaves in or contributes to the sole proprietorship. Also, the money a partner leaves in or contributes to a partnership.

What you earn by selling an investment for more than you paid. Capital gains (and losses) receive special treatment on your income tax return.

What you lose by selling an investment for less than you paid.

In Quicken, how you summarize income and outgo. For example, you may use a category, such as Wages, to summarize your payroll check deposits. You may use categories (such as Housing, Food, and Fun) to summarize your checks.

The list of categories you can use. Quicken suggests category lists for home users and for business users as part of the setup.

Someone who's taken a bunch of undergraduate and graduate accounting courses, passed a rather challenging test, and worked for at least a few years under a CPA doing things like auditing, tax planning and preparation, and consulting. Real exciting stuff, in other words.

A picture that shows numbers. In Quicken, you can produce pie charts, bar charts, line charts, and so on.

The date you write your payment instructions, or check. Technically, the check date is the date on which your payment instructions to the bank become valid.

The preprinted form that you use to provide payment instructions to your bank: "Okay, Mammoth National, pay Joe Shmoe $32 from my account, 00704-844." Theoretically, you could use just about anything as a check form — a scrap of paper, a block of wood, and so on. In fact, rumor has it that someone once used a cowhide. It's easier for your poor bank, though, if you use check forms that follow the usual style and provide OCR (optical character recognition) characters along the form's bottom edge.

Instructions from the IRS to employers. This publication tells stuff like how much federal income tax to withhold. Call the IRS and request a copy if you need one. Or visit the IRS Web site (www.irs.gov).

The old name for what Quicken now calls tags.

When a check or deposit has been received by the bank. An uncleared transaction hasn't been received by the bank.

What you use to tell Quicken what it should do. For example, "Quicken, I command thee to print a report." Note that while you can use menu commands to navigate within Quicken, you can also use the buttons, QuickTabs, and the hyperlinks that appear within the Quicken windows. Just thought I'd mention this.

A business's chief accountant — and usually the brunt of most accountant jokes. Also known as a comptroller.

A legal business entity created by state law, owned by shareholders, and managed by directors and officers. As a business entity, a corporation has unique advantages and some disadvantages. Ask your attorney for more information. But know that for small businesses, a limited liability company (LLC) is usually better. See also LLC.

A Quicken account specifically set up to track credit card charges, payments, and balances. See also account type.

A transaction that Quicken has removed from the register.

The thingamajig in your computer on which Windows stores your programs (such as Quicken) and your data files (such as the Quicken file for your financial records). A hard drive (or hard disk) inside your computer can store a great deal of information; removable storage devices (such as CDs, DVDs, and flash drives) typically store a lot less data than a hard drive.

To shut down, terminate, or stop a program. By the way, you want to always do this the right way, which means by using the File menu's Exit command or by clicking the program window's Close button. Don't just turn off your computer.

Where data is stored. Your Quicken financial records, for example, are stored in a set of files.

The name of a file in which Quicken stores data. Actually, what Quicken calls a filename is actually the name used for several files. You don't need to worry about this unless you create multiple files.

People who believe that they know so much about the world of finance that it is actually their God-given duty to share their expertise with you. See also wizard.

A tremendous bargain, as in: "At $22,000, the five-bedroom house was a real find." In Quicken, also an Edit menu command that you can use to locate transactions. See also search criteria.

An accounting year. Most of the time, a fiscal year is the same as the calendar year, starting on January 1 and ending on December 31. Some businesses and foreign taxpayers use a different fiscal year, though. (Why they do that is way, way beyond the scope of this book.)

What Windows uses to organize your hard drive. Some people call folders directories.

Hey, this word is too complicated for a book like this, isn't it? Let me just say that formatting means doing some things to a disk so that you can write files to that disk. It can also mean setting up some nice typesetting "looks" in your printed documents.

A program's online documentation — which can almost always be accessed by pressing F1. Also, a verbalized cry for assistance.

A bit of clickable text (and sometimes a clickable picture) that you can use (by clicking, of course) to move to some other Quicken feature or some other Web page. Quicken 2010, as you may have noticed, scatters hyperlinks everywhere. And I mean everywhere.

What almost everybody should use for their retirement investments but almost nobody does.... Alas.

An investment's profit expressed as a percentage of the investment. If you go down to the bank and buy a certificate of deposit earning 7 percent interest, for example, 7 percent is the CD's internal rate of return. I don't want to give you the heebie-jeebies, but internal rates of return can get really complicated really fast.

A Quicken account specifically set up for tracking loans, payments, the principal and interest portions of these payments, and the outstanding balance. See also account type.

See LLC.

An abbreviation for limited liability company. LLCs are popular with tax accountants and tax attorneys because they sort of give you the best of both the corporation and partnership worlds. For small businesses and real estate investments, LLCs are nice because (compared with corporations) they offer both simplicity and less paperwork.

A brief description of a transaction. Because you also give the payee and category for a transaction, it usually makes sense to use the Memo field to record some other bit of information about a check or deposit.

In Quicken, a list of commands. In a restaurant, a list of things you can order from the kitchen.

A horizontally arranged row, or bar, of menus. Yes, it does sound like a place where menus go for a drink after work.

A gap in the check numbers. For example, if your register shows a check 101 and a check 103, check 102 is a missing check.

A Quicken account specifically set up to track a mutual fund investment.

An extra service you can buy from your bank. With online banking, you record a payment in your Quicken register and then transmit the payment information to your bank so that it can make the actual payment. Online banking also lets you electronically transfer money between your accounts and grab your statement electronically.

An extra service you can buy from Intuit, the folks who bring you Quicken. With Online Bill Payment, you record a payment in your Quicken register and then transmit the payment information to Intuit's computer or your bank. Intuit or your bank then uses this information to make the actual payment.

Downloading transactions from many (and maybe even most) of the online brokerage services right into your investment accounts. If you're buying and selling securities, downloading these transactions (rather than entering them by hand) saves you time. This is a particularly valuable feature for people who want to see how quickly they can lose everything they own through day trading.

A business entity that combines two or more soon-to-be-former friends. In general, each partner is liable for the entire debts of the partnership.

A word you have to give Quicken before Quicken gives you access to a file. The first password, "Open sesame," was used by Ali Baba.

The person to whom a check is made payable. (If you write a check to me, Steve Nelson, I'm the payee.) In Quicken, however, you can fill in a Payee field for deposits and for account transfers.

Someone who's spent far more time than is healthy fooling around with a computer. Power users are good people to have as friends because they can often solve your worst technical nightmares. However, note that most people who describe themselves as power users aren't.

An abbreviation for Quicken Interchange Format. Basically, QIF is a set of rules that prescribes how an ASCII file must look if you want Quicken to read it. If you're a clever sort, you can import category lists and even transactions from ASCII files that follow the QIF rules.

The name of the checkbook-on-a-computer program that this book is about. You didn't really need to look this up, did you?

The Intuit Corporation Web site especially for Quicken users. Visit this Web site, my friend. It's really good.

A supercharged and multimedia version of Quicken that includes a bunch of extra whistles and bells, including multimedia help information, a really neat program for locating great mutual funds (called, cleverly enough, Mutual Fund Finder), and a Home Inventory System program. This book is about Quicken Premier, but Quicken Basic, Quicken Deluxe, Quicken Premier Home & Business, and Quicken Rental Property Manager users can apply this book to their products. (All the products are similar in their core functionality.)

An online service that you can use to grab up-to-date price information on stocks and bonds. This book doesn't talk much about Quicken Quotes.

A clever little feature. If Quicken can guess what you'll type next in a field, it types, or QuickFills, the field for you. QuickFill types in transactions, payee names, and category names.

Another name for the transaction list, a register shows the increases and decreases in an account balance.

An on-screen or printed summary of financial information from one or more registers.

Replace the current version of a file with the backup version. You may need to do this after a fire, hard drive failure, or thermonuclear exchange. See also backing up.

A Quicken pseudo-account. In effect, a savings goal account is a compartment in a banking account where you can "hide" or set aside money that you're saving for a special purpose. A new car. A boat. A trip to Montana. Whatever.

The vertical bars along the window's right edge and the horizontal bars along the window's bottom edge. Use them to scroll or page through your view of something that's too big to fit on one page.

A description of the transaction that you want to locate. See also Find.

A business that's owned by just one person and that doesn't have a separate legal identity. In general, businesses are sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, or limited liability companies.

A transaction assigned to more than one category or transferred to more than one account. A split-check transaction, for example, might show a $50 check to the convenience store paying for both groceries and automobile expenses.

The money that shareholders have contributed to a corporation or allowed to be retained in the corporation. You can't track stockholders' equity with Quicken.

A category within a category. For example, the suggested Quicken home categories list breaks down utilities spending into Cable TV, Gas and Electric, Telephone, and Water subcategories.

A group of categories that you monitor as a group. You create supercategories so that you can monitor them.

The clickable labels that look like file folder tabs and appear near the top of the Quicken program window underneath the menu bar and icon bar.

Tags (or classes) amount to another way to summarize Quicken data when categories just aren't enough. This book doesn't really talk about tags much. Sorry.

For an individual, an amount that can be deducted from total income (such as alimony or IRA contributions) or used as an itemized deduction and deducted from adjusted gross income (such as home mortgage interest or charitable contributions). For a business, any amount that represents an ordinary and necessary business expense. Be sure to consult with your tax advisor if you have any questions about what is or isn't a valid tax deduction.

Some accounts aren't taxable — IRAs, for one example, and 401(k) plans for another. To deal with this real-life complexity, Quicken lets you tag any account as being tax-deferred. As a practical matter, however, it'll probably be only investment accounts and the occasional bank account that are tax-deferred.

Someone who believes that fooling around with a computer is more fun than anything else in the world.

The list of increases and decreases in an account balance. Quicken displays a transaction list in a window that looks remarkably similar to a crummy old paper register — your checkbook. To print a copy of the register that you see on your screen, press Ctrl+P and then press the Enter key.

Flip-flopped numbers — for example, 23.45 entered as 24.35 (the 3 and 4 are flip-flopped as 4 and 3). These common little mistakes have caused many bookkeepers and accountants to go insane.

The current version (as of the date I'm writing this book) of the Microsoft Windows operating system. See also Windows.

The annual wages statement that employers use to tell employees what they made and to tell the IRS what employees made.

A summary form of W-2s. When employers send a stack of W-2s to the IRS, they also fill out a W-3 form that summarizes all the individual W-2s. W-2s and W-3s aren't much fun, but they're not hard to fill out.

The Microsoft Windows operating system. Quicken 2010 for Windows relies on Windows to do a bunch of system stuff, such as print. Refer to Appendix A for more information.

The newest edition of Windows; available October 2010.

A little program that walks you through the steps to completing some tasks that some programmer thinks you're too dense to figure out on your own. Although a wizard sounds bad, it actually isn't. Quicken supplies a bunch of cool wizards, including wizards for setting up accounts and setting up how you want to record a paycheck, planning for retirement, planning for your kid's college expenses, reducing your debts, and so on.