Decode the language mystery with this handy business acronym buster Not content with mere jargon, the business world is replete with acronyms. IT'S happened to all of us. Caught out in a conversation littered with acronyms you don't have a clue about. Not the FOMO, NSFW, TIL, TLDR and YOLOs of the world, that's a whole other mystery tome. Don't get caught out in that next meeting, nodding along to random letters that may as well be Swahili. Arm yourself with this handy guide to business acronyms. SMSF - A self-managed super fund is essentially do-it-yourself super and gives individuals complete control over how their superannuation is managed. While there are benefits such as the increasingly popular option of using your SMSF to fund your home deposit, unless you're particularly adept at financial matters, a SMSF is not for everyone. IPO - Initial public offering has been thrown around with growing velocity in the popular vernacular over the last couple of years. Because of some high-profile technology debuts from little-known companies called Facebook and Twitter. An IPO is the first time a previously privately owned business gets listed on the stock market, throwing open its doors to all investors who wants a chunk of it. Facebook famously botched its IPO in 2012 while Twitter's late last year was considered a success. WIP - Depending on who you talk to, a WIP is either a brilliant business innovation or a productivity-sucker. Work-in-progress meetings are exactly that, a way for everyone to check in with their shenanigans but some have decried them as a colossal waste of time as WIPs run on and on, leaving staff with less and less time to actually do the work. FMCG - Think milk, biscuits and canned tuna. Think Arnott's, Kellogg's and Unilever. Beloved by the marketing fraternity, FMCG is pretty self-explanatory once you know what it actually stands for: fast moving consumer goods. As in, they move fast off supermarket shelves. EBITDA - If you've had to scour through a financial report you'll be familiar with this one, even if you've never understood it. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation is the fancy way of saying how much money a company made minus expenses before all the variables such as taxes, capital expenditure and the like whittles away the pot. But be warned, a good EBITDA doesn't always equate to a good investment, sometimes it's just window dressing. NPAT - Net profit after tax is how much money a company actually pulled in after everything is accounted for. This is the 'bottom line'. If you have shares or investments, NPAT is what dividends are paid from. SME/SMB - As politicians love to say, especially around election time, small to medium businesses (or enterprises) are the backbone of the Australian economy. Small businesses are defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics as having less than 19 employees while medium businesses have between 20 and 199 staff. ROI - Return on investment is a fairly easy one. If you put your money behind something, whether it be shares, a start-up business or a campaign, you'll want to be rewarded with more moolah than you invested. FX/FOREX - No, it was absolutely nothing to do with special effects. But it is a bit special. FX, or FOREX, is foreign exchange. The decentralised forex market is where currencies are traded and is typically used by big international banks. Trillions, that's right, trillions, of dollars are traded on the FOREX market daily. And just for kicks: ASX - Australian Stock Exchange; S&P - Standard & Poor's; B2B - business to business; B2C - business to consumer; CRM - customer relationship management; GAAP - generally accepted accounting practices; GDP - gross domestic product; RFP - request for proposal; MOU - memorandum of understanding; VAT - value-added tax; EPS - earnings per share; and CPM/CPT - cost per mille/cost per thousand.