The term pro forma (occasionally written proforma) comes from a Latin phrase meaning, "as a matter of form". Its meaning depends on the context in which it is used.

General

Doing something in a pro forma manner is to do it in a perfunctory way to satisfy the minimum requirements or to conform to a convention.

Sometimes a pro forma or proforma, can refer to a partially completed document, designed by one person to be fully completed and returned by a number of others. The aim being to standardise the information returned to the designer. Usually a pro forma would contain pointers guiding a user in its completion. A document contains information. ...

Business

A pro forma document is provided in advance of an actual transaction. Such a document serves as a model for the actual documents of the transaction. For example, when a new corporation is envisioned, its founders may prepare a business plan containing pro forma financial statements, such as projected cash flows and income statements. A business plan is a summary of how a business owner, manager, or entrepreneur intends to organize an entrepreneurial endeavor and implement activities necessary and sufficient for the venture to succeed. ... Historical financial statement Financial statements (or financial reports) are a record of a business financial flows and levels. ... In finance, cash flow refers to the amounts of cash being received and spent by a business during a defined period of time, sometimes tied to a specific project. ... Income statements for companies indicate how Net Revenue (money received from the sale of products and services before expenses are taken out, also known as the top line) is transformed into Net Income (the result after all revenues and expenses have been accounted for, also known as the bottom line...

Legal proceedings

Pro forma refers to court rulings merely intended to facilitate the legal process (to move matters along).

Accounting

Many companies report pro forma earnings, in addition to actual earnings calculated under the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("GAAP"), in their quarterly and yearly financial reports. Income, generally defined, is the money that is received as a result of the normal business activities of an individual or a business. ... In demonology Gaap is a mighty Prince and Great President of Hell, commanding sixty-six legions of demons. ... Financial statements (or financial reports) are a record of a business financial flows and levels. ...

The pro forma accounting is a statement of the company's financial activities while excluding "unusual and nonrecurring transactions" (unusual and nonrecurring expenses) when stating how much money the company actually made. Expenses often excluded from pro forma results include company restructuring costs, a decline in the value of the company's investments, or other accounting charges, such as adjusting the current balance sheet to fix faulty accounting practices in previous years. In accounting, an expense is a general term for an outgoing payment made by a business or individual. ...

Companies that report a pro forma income statement or balance sheet usually do so because, they say, the unusual events being excluded really were unusual, so the GAAP financial reports required by law are misleading to investors and potential investors. The crisis that happened this last quarter is not going to recur in future quarters, so the pro forma results can be used by investors to forecast what a "regular" quarter might portend in the future.

Critics note that pro forma numbers always look more profitable than GAAP numbers, and state that many companies intentionally use pro forma results in order to mislead investors into believing the company is in much better financial shape than it is; that there is no defined meaning or accounting standard for "pro forma" and that it is therefore impossible to make an "apples to apples" comparison between companies with pro forma results in the way that GAAP accounting allows; and that most "unusual events" reported as such are part of the ordinary course of business and should be reported as such. Most companies in most capitalist countries restructure themselves often, for example, so, it is argued, it is dishonest to claim that restructuring charges are unusual, one-time events that investors should not anticipate in the future.

There was a boom in the reporting of pro forma results starting in the late 1990s, with many dot-com companies using the technique to recast their losses as profits, or at least to show smaller losses than the GAAP accounting showed. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requires publicly traded companies in the United States to report GAAP-based financial results, and has cautioned companies that using pro forma results to obscure GAAP results would be considered fraud if used to mislead investors. Dot-com (also dotcom or redundantly dot. ... The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, commonly referred to as the SEC, is the United States governing body which has primary responsibility for overseeing the regulation of the securities industry. ...

Legislation

In certain Commonwealth nations, such as Canada and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, pro forma bills are introduced immediately before consideration of the Speech from the Throne. Pro forma bills are incomplete pieces of legislation and undergo only the first reading stage, in order to symbolize the authority of the Houses of Parliament to discuss matters other than those specified in the reasons for Parliament having been summoned. After first reading, the bill is never considered further. The English noun Commonwealth dates originally from the fifteenth century. ... The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a country in western Europe, and member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the G8, the European Union, and NATO. Usually known simply as the United Kingdom, the UK, or (inaccurately) as Great Britain or Britain, the UK has four constituent... Queen Elizabeth II reads Canadas Speech from the Throne in 1977 The Speech from the Throne (or Throne Speech) is an event in certain monarchies in which the monarch (or a representative) reads a prepared speech to a complete session of parliament, outlining the governments agenda for the... A first reading is when a bill is introduced to a legislature. ... States currently utilizing parliamentary systems are denoted in orange and red—the former being constitutional monarchies where authority is vested in a parliament, and the latter being parliamentary republics whose parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state. ... States currently utilizing parliamentary systems are denoted in orange and red—the former being constitutional monarchies where authority is vested in a parliament, and the latter being parliamentary republics whose parliaments are effectively supreme over a separate head of state. ... A first reading is when a bill is introduced to a legislature. ...