Glossary

Accounts payable - Accounts payable is a file or account that contains money that a person or company owes to suppliers, but hasn't paid yet (a form of debt). When you receive an invoice you add it to the file, and then you remove it when you pay. Thus, the A/P is a form of credit that suppliers offer to their purchasers by allowing them to pay for a product or service after it has already been received.

Accounts receivable - Accounts receivable is one of a series of accounting transactions dealing with the billing of customers who owe money to a person, company or organization for goods and services that have been provided to the customer. In most business entities this is typically done by generating an invoice and mailing or electronically delivering it to the customer, who in turn must pay it within an established timeframe called credit or payment terms

Credit control - Credit control is the process of control over payments coming into and going out of the firm. It is mainly concerned with the firm's creditors (people who the firm owes money to) and the firm's debtors (people who owe money to the firm). Tight credit control is important if a firm wants to avoid cash flow problems.

Credit Limit - A credit limit is the maximum amount of credit that a financial institution or other lender will extend to a debtor for a particular line of credit (sometimes called a credit line, line of credit, or a tradeline).

e-Billing - Also known as Electronic Billing is the electronic delivery and presentation of financial statements, bills, invoices, and related information sent by a company to its customers.

e-Credit Control - Data Interconnect's complete solution to the problem of effective handling of credit control.

e-Procurement - Also known as electronic procurement, sometimes also known as supplier exchange is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer purchase and sale of supplies and services through the Internet as well as other information and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning. Typically, e-procurement Web sites allow qualified and registered users to look for buyers or sellers of goods and services. Depending on the approach, buyers or sellers may specify costs or invite bids. Transactions can be initiated and completed. Ongoing purchases may qualify customers for volume discounts or special offers. E-procurement software may make it possible to automate some buying and selling. Companies participating expect to be able to control parts inventories more effectively, reduce purchasing agent overhead, and improve manufacturing cycles. E-procurement is expected to be integrated with the trend toward computerized supply chain management.

EDI - EDI can be formally defined as 'The transfer of structured data, by agreed message standards, from one computer system to another without human intervention'. Most other definitions used are variations on this theme. Despite being relatively unheralded, in this era of technologies such as XML web services, the Internet and the World Wide Web, EDI is still the data format used by the vast majority of electronic commerce transactions in the world.

ERP System - An ERP system is a business support system that maintains in a single database the data needed for a variety of business functions such as Manufacturing, Supply Chain Management, Financials, Projects, Human Resources and Customer Relationship Management. An ERP system is based on a common database and a modular software design. The common database can allow every department of a business to store and retrieve information in real-time. The information should be reliable, accessible, and easily shared. The modular software design should mean a business can select the modules they need, mix and match modules from different vendors, and add new modules of their own to improve business performance.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network, such as the Internet. FTP is a file transfer protocol for exchanging and manipulating files over any TCP-based computer network. A FTP client may connect to a FTP server to manipulate files on that server. As there are many FTP client and server programs available for different operating systems, FTP is a popular choice for exchanging files independent of the operating systems involved.

Invoice Authorisation - Part of the accounts payable process, where invoices are matched with purchase orders and packing slips before the invoices are paid, or marked as correct for payment by the appropriate manager.

Invoice Processing - Invoice processing involves the handling of incoming invoices from arrival to post. Invoices have many variations and types. In general, invoices are grouped into two types:
1. Invoices Associated with a Request
2. Invoices that do not have an Associated Request

Key Performance Indicators - Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are financial and non-financial metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. KPIs can be delivered through Business Intelligence techniques to assess the present state of the business and to assist in prescribing a course of action. The act of monitoring KPIs in real-time is known as business activity monitoring (BAM). KPIs are frequently used to "value" difficult to measure activities such as the benefits of leadership development, engagement, service, and satisfaction. KPIs are typically tied to an organization's strategy

Purchase Order - A purchase order (PO) is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. Sending a PO to a supplier constitutes a legal offer to buy products or services. Acceptance of a PO by a seller usually forms a once-off contract between the buyer and seller, so no contract exists until the PO is accepted.

PDF - Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system

ROI - In finance, rate of return (ROR) or return on investment (ROI), or sometimes just return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. The amount of money gained or lost may be referred to as interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or net income/loss. The money invested may be referred to as the asset, capital, principal, or the cost basis of the investment.

Sales Order - The sales order, sometimes abbreviated as SO, is an order received by a business from a customer. A sales order may be for products and/or services. A sales order is an internal document of the company, meaning it is generated by the company itself. A sales order should record the customer's originating purchase order which is an external document. Rather than using the customer's purchase order document, an internal sales order form allows the internal audit control of completeness to be monitored as a sequential sales order number can be used by the company for its sales order documents.

Sales Order Portal - Data Interconnect’s solution for customers needing a comprehensive and cost-effective Internet sales order processing system. Linked directly into your existing Sales Order and Stock control systems it provides your customers with the ability to place orders with you directly over the Internet.

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the de facto standard for electronic mail (e-mail) transmissions across the Internet.

Web Portal - A web portal is a site that provides a single function via a web page or site. Web portals often function as a point of access to information on the World Wide Web. Portals present information from diverse sources in a unified way. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a consistent look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether

WebSend AP - Data Interconnect's WebSend AP (Accounts Payable) is a modular system that links you electronically with your suppliers and manages the flow of purchasing documents around your organisation. Customers have reduced the average time for their purchase invoices to be authorised from four weeks to two days, simplifying their accounts procedures and massively reducing their costs.

WebSend AR - Data Interconnect's WebSend AR (Accounts Receivable) is an accounts document delivery package (invoices, statements, order acknowledgements and debt chasing letters) that will save you money and improve your cash flow, a fully integrated state of the art e-billing solution for companies sending out larger volumes of documents.

XML - The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose specification for creating custom markup languages. It is classified as an extensible language because it allows its users to define their own elements. Its primary purpose is to help information systems share structured data, particularly via the Internet, and it is used both to encode documents and to serialize data

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