Pre-accounting glossary
Pre-accounting is the layer where a business records its day-to-day commercial activity — customer accounts, quotes and invoices, collections, stock and expenses. It does not keep statutory books; it prepares the data an accountant will use. The most common terms in this field are defined below.
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General concepts
- Pre-accounting
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The layer that records a business’s daily commercial activity: customer accounts, quotes and invoices, collections and payments, stock and expenses. It keeps no statutory books and files no returns; it prepares complete, orderly data for the accountant who does.
- General ledger accounting
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The layer where statutory books are kept, entries are posted against a chart of accounts, and tax returns are produced. Usually handled by an accountant. The documents and movements produced by pre-accounting are its input; neither replaces the other.
- e-Invoice and e-Archive (Türkiye)
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The Turkish Revenue Administration’s electronic document regime. e-Invoice applies between registered taxpayers; e-Archive covers buyers outside the system. Submission goes through the tax authority portal or a licensed integrator.
In the product: The product creates and prints invoices and lets you track e-document status manually. Automatic submission is on the roadmap.
Customer accounts and collections
- Customer account (current account)
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The account that tracks the debit and credit relationship with a customer or supplier. Every invoice, collection and payment posts to it. Its running difference is the net amount owed in either direction at any moment.
- Account statement
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Every movement on an account over a date range, listed in chronological order with debit, credit and a running balance on each line. A statement is the documented answer to “how much does this customer owe me”.
In the product: The balance is never stored in a field; it is derived from approved invoices and money movements. Drafts do not appear.
- Ageing report
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Open receivables grouped by how long they have been overdue — for example 0–30, 31–60 and 61–90 days. It shows at a glance which collections are slipping and where the risk is concentrated.
In the product: One of the built-in reports; run over any date range.
- Credit limit
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The maximum open balance allowed for a customer. As the balance approaches the limit, the decision to sell more is taken deliberately. The limit is a commercial judgement about how much credit you are willing to extend.
In the product: Set on the customer card and tracked alongside payment terms.
- Due date
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The date a receivable or payable must be settled, derived by adding agreed days to the invoice date. Due-date tracking is the basis of cash-flow forecasting: it tells you which collection to expect in which week.
- Opening balance
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The amount carried into a new system for a customer account or a cash/bank account. Instead of migrating every historical movement, you start from a single carry-over line and post subsequent movements on top of it.
- Payment matching (allocation)
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Marking which invoices an incoming payment settles. Without matching, the total balance may look right while nobody knows which invoice is still open — which breaks due-date and ageing tracking.
In the product: One payment can be spread across several invoices and one invoice across several payments; the open amount is derived from those allocations.
- Partial collection
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Payment of part of an invoice. The invoice does not close; the remainder stays open and continues to age against its own due date. This is the normal case for instalment sales and advance payments.
Documents
- Quote
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A written statement of price, quantity and terms given to a customer. It has no financial effect: until it is accepted it posts neither to the account nor to stock. Once accepted it becomes the next document in the chain.
- Order
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An accepted quote made binding. It fixes what will be delivered and on what terms it will be invoiced. There is a purchase-side equivalent: the purchase order placed with a supplier.
In the product: One click turns a quote into an order and marks the quote accepted.
- Delivery note
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The document evidencing that goods physically moved. It travels with the shipment and is the basis for stock going out. It is not an invoice: a delivery note records movement of goods, an invoice records that an amount became due.
In the product: Stock movement is derived from the delivery note; partial shipments become separate documents.
- Invoice
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The commercial document stating the amount, tax and payment terms for goods or services sold. A receivable arises when it is issued, and it posts to the customer account. Sales invoices go out; purchase invoices come in.
- Document chain
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The quote → order → delivery note → invoice sequence, where each step carries the previous one’s lines. It prevents the same line being typed more than once, which is what normally causes quantities or prices to drift between steps.
In the product: A converted document opens as a draft, so you can review it before sending.
- Draft and approved documents
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A draft is still being worked on and has no financial effect. An approved document is final: it posts to the account and to stock and can no longer be edited. Corrections are made by cancelling and issuing a new document.
In the product: Draft → approved → cancelled, with no way back. The cancellation reason stays in the audit trail.
- Line-level discount
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A discount applied to a single line rather than the whole invoice, as a percentage or an amount. It is deducted from the gross figure, and VAT is calculated on what remains — get that order wrong and the tax amount is wrong too.
In the product: Line discounts run 0–100%, and all totals are computed on the server.
- VAT base
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The amount value-added tax is calculated on: a line’s gross figure after discounts are deducted. Different lines on the same invoice can carry different VAT rates, and each is calculated on its own base.
Stock, cash and expenses
- Stock movement
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Any record that changes a product’s quantity: goods in, goods out, a stocktake difference, a return. Stock on hand is the sum of these. Stock derived from movements can be explained retrospectively; a hand-typed quantity cannot.
- Low-stock threshold
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The figure below which a product raises a warning, set from lead time and average consumption. Its purpose is to stop you discovering that an item ran out at the moment you are trying to sell it.
- Cheques and promissory notes
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Commercial instruments promising a set amount on a set date, held as either received or issued. They look like cash but are not collected until their due date, which is why they are tracked separately.
In the product: Due dates and status are tracked.
- POS account
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The intermediate account where card collections sit until they reach the bank. At the moment of a card sale the money is not yet in the bank, and settlement timing and commission make the amount and the date differ. That gap shows up in the POS account.
Periods and auditing
- Period lock
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A restriction preventing new entries into a closed fiscal period and changes to existing ones. It keeps the figures sent to the accountant from silently changing afterwards — the most common reason post-close numbers stop matching.
In the product: No entries can be added to a closed period and no existing record can be changed.
- Audit trail
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The record of which user changed which record, when and how. A good audit trail does not just say “changed”; it keeps the old and new value of the field. In a dispute or a bug hunt it is the only reliable source.
In the product: Changed fields are written with both old and new values, alongside a separate security log.
- Reconciliation
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Comparing two sets of records to confirm the amounts agree. Bank reconciliation matches the bank statement against system movements; account reconciliation compares your balance with the counterparty’s.
In the product: Bank movements can be flagged as reconciled.
- Period pack
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The set of reports and documents handed to the accountant at period close. Its purpose is to transfer everything that happened in one go, so documents are not requested piecemeal and nothing is left behind.
In the product: Pulled from a single screen; one of the built-in reports.
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