Retained earnings
Retained earnings are accumulated profits of a corporation that have been kept in the business and not paid out as dividends. Retained Earnings is an account and a part of stockholders' equity.
Definitions
According to College Accounting: A Practical Approach by Slater (13th edition),
- Retained Earnings. Accumulated profits of a corporation that have been kept in the business and not paid out as dividends. Retained Earnings is part of stockholders' equity.
According to Financial Management Theory and Practice by Eugene F. Brigham and Michael C. Ehrhardt (13th edition),
- Retained earnings. The portion of the firm's earning that have been saved rather than paid out as dividends.
According to Fundamentals of Financial Management by Eugene F. Brigham and Joel F. Houston (15th edition),
- Retained earnings. They represent the cumulative total of all earnings kept by the company during its life.
Related concepts
- Accounting (alternatively known as accountancy) is management of financial data, information, and knowledge about financial transactions of legal entities. Accountancy tends to include bookkeeping and, depending on a particilar enterprise, may also include quatitative analysis of financial data in the bookkeeping system and/or business intelligence.
