Manufacturing Account: An account used to show what it cost to produce the finished goods made by a manufacturing business.

Maker: A person (entity) who signs a note to borrow money and who assumes responsibility to pay the note at maturity.

Markup: The amount added to the cost of a product by a retailer.

Market Adjustment-Trading Securities account: An account used to track the difference between the historical cost and the market value of a company's portfolio of trading securities.

Master Files: Files used in the computer system that contain permanent information necessary for the ongoing operation of the system. These files are never eliminated from the system. An example would be the file containing the General Ledger control account numbers.

Matching Principle: The concept that all costs and expenses incurred in generating revenues must be recognized in the same reporting period as the related revenues.

Maturity Date: The date on which a note or other obligation becomes due.

Maturity Value: The amount of an obligation to be collected or paid at maturity; equal to principal plus any interest.

Memo Billing (aka memo invoicing): Goods ordered and invoiced on approval. There is no obligation to buy.

Memorandum Accounts: A name for the accounts held in a subsidiary ledger. E.g. the accounts in a sales ledger.

Merchandise Inventory: Goods held for sale to customers.

Merger: The acquisition of one company by another company whereby the companies combine as one legal entity, with the acquired company going out of existence.

Minority Interest: The interest owned in a subsidiary by stockholders other than those of the parent company; occurs when the acquiring company has less than a 100 percent ownership interest.

Moving Average: A perpetual inventory cost flow alternative whereby the cost of goods sold and the cost of ending inventory are determined by using a weighted-average cost of all merchandise on hand after each purchase.

Multiple-Step Income Statement (aka Multi-step): An income statement (aka Profit and Loss) which has had its revenue section split up into sub-sections in order to give a more detailed view of its sales operations. Example: a company sells services and goods. The statement could show revenue from services and associated costs of those revenues at the start of the revenue section, then show goods sold and cost of goods sold underneath. The two sections totals can then be amalgamated at the end to show overall sales (or gross profit).

Mutual Agency: The right of all partners in a partnership to act as agents for the normal business operations of the partnership, with the authority to bind it to a business agreements.