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A

Account: A bucket in the books for one kind of asset, liability, equity (or fund), income or expense - Bank, Rent, Donations.
Accrual: Recording a cost (or income) in the month it belongs to, before the bill (or invoice) arrives. TinERP can reverse it on the first day of the next month.
Advance: Money paid to someone before they spend it for the organization - for a trip or an event. It stays the organization's money until it's retired.
Approval workflow: The rules that decide who approves each kind of request - conditions, then steps in order.
Audit log: The record of who did what and when, with the values before and after each change. Nobody can edit it.

B

Budget control: What happens when a claim, advance or purchase order would spend more than is left in the budget: nothing, a warning for the approver, or a block.
Burn rate: For a grant: how much of the award is spent against how much of its time has passed.

C

Chart of accounts: The list of every account the books use, grouped under headers by type.
Closing journal: The year-end entry that brings income and expenses to zero and moves the year's result into retained earnings - or each fund's balance.
Committed: Money promised but not yet spent: open purchase orders and advances not yet retired. Budget vs actual shows it next to what's spent.
Control account: An account only its own documents post to - receivables, payables, VAT, WHT, employee advances - so it always agrees with the detail behind it.
Cost center: A way to group costs for reporting that isn't a department or branch - a vehicle, a building, a programme.
Credit note: A document that reduces an invoice you issued. A vendor's credit note reduces what you owe them.

D

Debit note: What TinERP records on a vendor's bill when they credit you - it reduces what you owe.
Delegate: The person who decides your approvals while you're out of office.
Dimension: A tag on a journal line for reporting: department, branch and cost center - and for NGOs, fund and grant.

E

Employee: Someone the organization employs, with their job, manager and records in HR. Not the same as a user: a driver can be an employee without a login.
Expense claim: A request to be paid back for money spent on the organization's behalf, with receipts.

F

Fund: For NGOs, a pot of money held for a purpose: restricted (a donor limits its use), unrestricted, or endowment. Each fund balances on its own.

G

Grant: A donor's award: its donor, amount, dates and the fund it belongs to. Tagging lines with it makes donor reports come straight from the books.

I

Interfund lines: Lines TinERP adds when an entry crosses funds - for example a programme cost paid from the general bank account - so each fund still balances.

J

Journal: One transaction in the books, with its debit and credit lines. Posted journals are never edited - they're reversed.

O

Opening balances: Where the books stood when you started with TinERP: account balances, and each invoice, bill and advance still open.

P

Payment run: Many bills paid in one go from one bank account - approved by one person and carried out by another, with a bank file.
Per diem: A flat daily allowance for a trip - worked out from the destination's rate and the days away. No receipts are needed for it.
Period: A month of the financial year. Open months take postings; closed ones don't; locked ones are final.
Permission: One thing a role may do - Pay expense claims, Manage users. Roles are made of permissions.
Petty cash: A small cash float held by a custodian for small payments, counted regularly and topped up from the bank.
Pivot: A report with one field down the side, another across the top and a figure in each cell - spend by department and month, say.
Prepayment: A cost paid in advance - a year's insurance - held as an asset and released to expense month by month.
Purchase order: The organization's order to a vendor: what, how many, at what price and by when.

R

Reconciliation: Matching the bank statement line by line with the books, and explaining every difference.
Requisition: A request for something to be bought. Once approved, a buyer orders it.
Retirement: Accounting for an advance after the trip or event: what was actually spent, with receipts - then any refund or reimbursement.
RFQ: A request for quotation - asking several vendors to price the same lines, to compare and award.
Role: A set of permissions given to users - Owner, Admin, Manager, Staff, or your own.

S

Saved view: A report saved with its filters, columns and summary - private or shared.
Scope: Whose records a permission reaches: a person's own, their department's, their branch's, or everyone's.
Subledger: The detail behind a control account - the unpaid invoices behind receivables, say. The subledger check confirms they agree.

T

Tax point: The date that decides which month's VAT return an invoice or bill falls in.
Three-way match: Checking a vendor's invoice against the order and what was received, so nobody pays for more than arrived, or at more than the agreed price.
Trial balance: Every account's balance at a date, with the check that debits equal credits.

U

User: Someone who can sign in to TinERP, with a role. Not the same as an employee.

V

VAT: Value added tax - 7.5% in Nigeria. Charged on sales and claimed back on purchases by organizations registered for it.

W

WHT: Withholding tax - deducted from what you pay some vendors and paid to the tax authority on their behalf; customers may deduct it from what they pay you.

Y

Year-end close: Closing the financial year: its income and expenses move into retained earnings or each fund, and its months close.