Accounting Basics on not so basic accounting

Reading this article was very confusing. Not the math; the math is not hard at all. Give me an excel spreadsheet and I'll show you what I can do. The terms however... Why do they make such simple things have large names that don't convey what they mean? I hear "Gross net overbudget blah blah blah", not "how much we made last year after taxes". Why can't we just call these numbers what they do and represent instead of making special names. The word "Profit" is the only term I feel I can deal with. This makes me think I could use an accounting class or two just to immerse myself in the terminology. Again, another example where immersion is necessary. I don't feel like I took much away from the accounting read at all, there were just to many unfamiliar words referencing other unfamiliar words.

While I am frustrated about accounting, I see much value in it. I thoroughly enjoy business math, whether I know the name of what I'm doing when I do it or not. It gives one a sense of control and organization, because, for me at least, one knows exactly what is going on. Where the money goes and how it's used is to the success of the business as the business itself. You can sell tons of a brilliant product or service and still be horribly inefficient. My boss bought out his business partners half of their business, and now the business is significantly more profitable (o.O I used an accounting word just there). His partner was giving discounts to everyone, not charging enough for labor, not paying bills on time, and ordering merchandise in little chunks instead of big shipments. Tens of thousands of dollars every year, a huge percentage of the cashflow was just falling through the cracks. I think I would like to be an organized person... perhaps google will help me.