What Does M and MM Mean in Accounting?

• September 8, 2025
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The 155 mm howitzer round is why is million mm one of the most requested artillery munitions of the war in Ukraine. Already the U.S. has shipped more than 1.5 million rounds to Ukraine, but Kyiv is still seeking more. It’s even more annoying when people explain that MM means thousand x thousand in Roman numerals. That still doesn’t change my opinion that M is a better abbreviation for million. If you think there’s any possibility of your use of MM being confusing or being misinterpreted, you’re safer writing out the numbers or using “millions.”

Should I use $mm or $m for millions?

• Now that you know several large number abbreviations, you have access to several options you can use in your reports or other forms of writing.
• If it is in a science or mathematic context, 1m will always be acceptable because it creates less confusion and takes less time.
• However, there has been a growing tendency to use K as the symbol for thousands instead of M.
• Traditionally, M is used as the symbol for thousands and MM for millions in the business world, particularly in accounting.
• The financial world uses “K” when referring to “per thousand dollars”.
• In Ukraine, 155 mm rounds are being fired at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 a day, said Ukrainian parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee.

Once you get to a large sum, it makes sense to abbreviate it in common ways to help everyone understand the figure without overwhelming them. The seven letters in Roman numerals are I, V, X, L, C, D, and M. These figures have values of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000. Once a number reaches higher than ten, it becomes much harder to count with your fingers. The prevailing thought as to why Romans used letters to represent numerical values instead of numbers involves the fingers on a person’s hand.

Example of MM in Financial Statements

• The information provided on , in webinars and accompanying material is for entertainment and informational purposes only.
• This period saw the rise of double-entry bookkeeping, a system that revolutionized accounting by providing a clear and systematic method for recording financial transactions.
• Billion is typically abbreviated as “B”, while million is abbreviated as “M”.
• Million is generally abbreviated with a capital M as in Megabyte or just “mn”.
• Thus, billion means a thousand millions (109), trillion means a thousand billions (1012), and so on.
• However, the word million has been around in English only since the late fourteenth century.

What words were used before this time to talk about large numbers? This article looks at how we started using million and billion and how the meaning of billion has changed. The meaning of the word “million” is common to the short scale and long scale numbering systems, unlike the larger numbers, which have different names in the two systems. MM is commonly used in finance to refer to ‘million.’ It is an abbreviation derived from the Roman numeral system where ‘M’ stands for ‘mille,’ meaning thousand. Does not make any guarantee or another promise as to any results that may be obtained from using our content. No one should make any investment decision without first consulting his or her own financial advisor and conducting his or her own research and due diligence.

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You can also check the millimeter to centimeter conversion chart below, or go back to millimeter to centimeter converter to top. It is equivalent to 10 millimeters or 1/100th (10-2) of a meter. Years ago it was a basic unit in formerly used CGS (centimeter-gram-second) unit system, but in modern times the role of basic unit of length is played by meter. It is also commonly represented by the abbreviation “M” or “mn” (for example, $1M or $1mn) to indicate one million dollars or one million units of a particular currency. I have seen $100M also which used https://ibg-idaho.com/managerial-accounting-vs-financial-accounting-2/ to mean 100-million-dollars but in that example one uses a currency symbol AND an uppercase M.

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• It is equivalent to 10 millimeters or 1/100th (10-2) of a meter.
• In this example, we intentionally chose a piece of analysis that contained various different units, such as dollars and shares.
• Most native speakers wouldn’t care much about “million” as an abbreviation because they won’t often come across the number in their daily lives.
• Review a few examples of sentences that feature common abbreviations for million.
• Notice that M appears twice in the table above, to represent both thousand and million.
• As businesses operate on a global scale, the need for standardized financial terminology becomes paramount.
• Review a few examples of sentences that feature common abbreviations for billion.

Similarly, if an investor mentions owning 5M shares of a particular stock, they are referring to holding 5 million shares. A. You’ve identified two commonly used conventions in finance, one derived from Greek and the other from Latin, but neither one is standard. The term enables clarity and consistency, reducing the risk of misunderstandings due to different interpretations of number notation. In various aspects of finance such as budgeting, financial analysis, reporting, and forecasting, the use of MM aids in ensuring accuracy and precision.

It is commonly employed in newspaper headlines, where limited space necessitates concise language. Additionally, tech companies often use “M” to denote megabytes, a unit of digital storage capacity. Use the capital letter “M” to abbreviate “million” (e.g., 1M for 1 Oil And Gas Accounting million).

• Furthermore, using MM can make a large-scale monetary value easier to quickly grasp, both visually and conceptually, as it simplifies the financial quantities being discussed or presented.
• From myrias we get the English word myriad meaning “an extremely large number or amount”.
• Financial documents often traverse multiple jurisdictions, each with its own set of conventions and terminologies.
• We’ll explain the correct abbreviation for “million” in this article.
• If the company sells 26,000 units, the accountant can record that as 26M units.

Scientific notation represents numbers in powers of ten, so that 650 billion can be written as 650 × 109 or as 6.5 × 1011. “M” is the most common abbreviation for “million.” If you’re going to abbreviate “million,” it would usually turn into this form. It makes the most sense considering that “million” starts with the letter “M.” Most abbreviations follow this standard practice. We often find the abbreviation (mm) on financial statements, which stands for millions.

If you do use these abbreviations, be sure to clearly define them in the text. The government might have a program that needs $50 billion in funding. That letter isn’t Greek or Roman, but the average reader would likely understand the concept. You’d look for a G or MMM in the world of financial analysis and accounting.