negotiating the offer....

[daufoi]

Hello all,

I recently received verbal offers from 2 companies. I was in the fortunate position that they were competing with each other and they both offered me a bonus in addition to my base salary. I decided on one and received a formal offer letter from that company. The letter reads that the bonus is a year-end, performance based bonus. Is this normal? I was under the impression that this was a signing bonus because it's standard to consider someone for a year-end, performance based bonus. Neither company specified the bonus type, just that it's a "bonus". It's a little confusing and I was wondering what other people's thoughts are.