Glossary

Written By Grainne Reidy (Super Administrator)

Updated at December 4th, 2024

A - H

A

  • Accounting: Accounting is the process of identifying, recording, summarizing, and analyzing an entity’s financial transactions and reporting them in financial statements. Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of keeping the accounting books of a company’s financial transactions.
  • Accounts Payable: This is a current liability that an entity or a business received goods and services and it owes money to a vendor or a supplier. 
  • Accounts Receivable: This is a current asset that an entity or a business will receive payment from customers they sold goods and services. 
  • Accrued Liabilities: This refers to expenses that are incurred prior to being paid. For example, salaries earned by your employees and paid in a subsequent month are accrued as a liability until they are paid. 
  • Accrued Revenue: Represents revenue that is earned and recorded but not yet received in the form of cash.
  • Aged Creditor Report: AKA Accounts Payable Aging Report. This shows balances a company owes to others. The report includes Supplier names, amounts owed to each vendor, the number of times you owed debts, and whether any payments are past due.
  • Aged Debtor Report: AKA Accounts Receivable Aging report. This shows balances a company is owed by others. The report includes Customer names, amounts owed by customers, the number of times they owed the company, and whether payments are past due.
  • AP Inbox: This is a feature in AIQ that allows suppliers to send invoices directly into the platform. 
  • Assets: The things that a company owns otherwise known as Equity or capital.
  • Auditors: Auditors look after the compliance of the entity to make sure it meets these regulations.

B

  • Balance Sheet: It is the statement of the financial position of the business entity on a particular date. 
  • Bank Reconciliation: This is a statement prepared to reconcile the difference between the balances as per the bank column of the cash book and passbook on any given date. 
  • Batch Payment: This refers to making multiple payments to different recipients at once, for example, suppliers, banks, or customers  
  • BI codes: Codes that are user-defined for tagging transactions in AIQ.

  • Capital budgeting: This involves deciding whether the business can afford to make a capital investment. 
  • Capital Expenditure: This refers to the money spent by an entity to buy, maintain, or improve its fixed assets, such as buildings, vehicles, equipment, or land. 
  • Cash-based Accounting: This represents a method of recording accounting transactions most easily described as accounting for cash transactions. 
  • Cash Flow Statement: This is a listing of the flows of cash into and out of the business. 
  • Charts of Account: A list of categories or accounts where transactions are recorded. 
  • Consol Entity: This is an entity that has all the consolidated entities’ transactions and reporting. 
  • Consolidation: This refers to the process of collating financial data from different entities within an organization and rolling it up to a parent company. 
  • Corporate Development: This involves dealing with mergers, acquisitions, investments, debt management, and funding. 
  • Cost Accounting: This involves analysing spending with the goal of reducing inefficiencies, increasing profitability, and making better forecasts. 
  • Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): This represents the cost of items or services sold to customers. 
  • Credits: This is a term used by bookkeepers and accountants for recording transactions in accounting, usually on the right side of accounting. 
  • Customers: A person or an entity that transacts or buys goods and services from an organisation.  

D

  • Debits: Like Credits, this is usually recorded on the left side of accounting. 
  • Deferred revenue: Represents income received, but not yet earned. This is typically a liability account. 
  • Deferred Revenue: Represents income received, but not yet earned. This is typically a liability account. 
  • Depreciation: This is the reduction in value of an asset or item that arises from either use or wear and tear. 
  • Dimensions: These are user-defined ways of analysing transactions.
  • Directors: Directors are responsible for the management of the entity.  Shareholders own the entity and benefit from its profits.
  • Double Entry: Double entry is a system of bookkeeping in which each transaction is entered as a debit in one account and a credit in another. This is to ensure records are accurate and complete.  

E

  • Employees: Without Employees an entity cannot provide services or goods.  An entity pays employees' salaries, deducts taxes, and covers expenses incurred.
     
  • Equity (Capital): This is referring to the owner’s interest in the business, which is normally the total assets minus the total liabilities as seen on the balance sheet. 
  • Expenses: Cost incurred to run a business. 

F

  • Financial Analysis: This involves building predictions based on a business’s historical performance.
  • Financial Statement: This is a statement that conveys all the financial activities of a business or an entity.  
  • Fiscal Year: This is the financial year of an entity that is used as the accounting period. 
  • Fixed Asset: This usually refers to assets and property that cannot easily be converted into cash. 

  • General Ledger: An accounting record where all the accounts are maintained. When you enter a transaction, the General Ledger accounts are automatically updated. 
  • Gross Profit: Represents your revenue from sales of inventory or services, less Cost of Goods Sold, before overhead expenses. 

I

  • Income tax: These are fees imposed by the government on businesses or individuals. 
  • Inventory: The items or goods that a company sells to its customer. 
  • Invoice: This is a document that displays the transaction between a buyer and a seller usually issued to a customer. 
 
 

J - R

J

  • Journals: Account ledgers where entries are recorded. For example, Receipts, Sales, Purchases, and Purchases journals. Every transaction creates a corresponding set of debit and credit entries in a specific journal.

  • Legal Entity:  Limited / Unlimited Company, Partnership, Charity, Association. An entity's obligation is to submit all statutory reporting including VAT and other tax returns.
     
  • Lenders: This refers to entities that lend or give money to a business or a corporation, such as banks.
  • Liabilities: The things a company owes in cash or other resources, these are claims against assets. 

  • Net income: This is the Total Income/Revenue minus Total Expenses. 

O

  • Operating profit: Profit before Other Income is added, and Other Expenses are subtracted. 
  • Overhead Expense: Represents the expenses of a business independent of how much revenue is generated. Can also be considered Fixed Costs, things like rent, salaries, and utilities. 

P

  • Power BI: A tool/software for designing customized reporting. 
  • Prepaid Expense: This refers to expenses that are paid in advance of incurring them. For example, you might pay a year’s worth of insurance and accrue 1/12 of it each month. This is typically an asset account.
  • Profit & Loss Statement (Income): This refers to a statement that displays the revenues and expenses of a company in a particular period. 
  • Purchase ledger: AKA Accounts Payable (AP). Lists of your supplier accounts.
  • Purchase Order: This is a document issued to a supplier to deliver goods and services to the buyer at a price and quality that is agreed upon. 

R

  • Recurring Invoice: This is a feature on AIQ that lets you automate invoices periodically for customers. 
  • Retained Earnings: This refers to the cumulative net income or loss of a business since its inception.  
  • Return On Investment (ROI): This refers to the performance or measure of a business based on the capital injected into the business or company. 
  • Revenue: This is the total income generated from the sale of goods and services. 
  • Risk Management: This involves looking at key risks faced by the company, including currency, interest rate, market, operational, and legal risks. 
 
 

S - Z

S

  • Sales Ledger: AKA Accounts Receivable (AR). Lists all your customer accounts.
     
  • Shareholders/Investors: Individuals or entities that own a company by the virtue of their capital injected. 
  • Subsidiary Ledger: Customer and vendor balances that equal the amount of the Trade Debtors and Trade Creditors General Ledger accounts. 
  • Suppliers: A person or an entity that provides goods and services to an organization. 

T

  • Trade Creditors: Money or other obligations owed to creditors for services and materials, a Liability on the Balance Sheet. 
  • Trade Debtors: Like Creditors, Debtors is money or other obligations due for services rendered or items sold on terms, an Asset on the Balance Sheet. 
  • Treasury Management: This is how a business handles its working capital and short-term liquidity. This means the balance between the cash coming in from customer payments and the cash going out to pay suppliers. A business with low liquidity could easily close due to a lack of funding to support growth. 
  • Trial Balance: This is a statement that displays all the general ledger accounts in an entity and shows the current balances. 

W

  • Working Capital: This is the difference between the current assets and the current liabilities, known as the net. 

Y

  • Year end: The end of the fiscal year for a business/company.