The terminology of finance, and particularly accounting terminology, forms an organised system of lexical items. This paper examines and explains the principles on which the English and Czech financial and accounting terminologies are formed, investigates the sense relations between their component parts and compares the formation of terms in English and Czech. The structure of accounting terminological hierarchies in different languages is very similar as they reflect the same objective reality or concepts, but the morphological and onomatological properties of different languages have a substantial influence on the consistency and transparency of lexical hierarchies. The paper focuses on comparing the various ways of formation of terms particularly in the two languages, and contrasts taxonomies and meronomies, terms at superordinate and subordinate taxonomic levels.