Terminology

Do you have a question like ‘What is a xxx?’ that you would like answered? A basic explanation of most terms can be found here.

This list is constantly evolving. If there is something you would like to see added or improved please tell us.

• Accounting - Discipline of measuring, recording, communicating and interpreting financial activity.
• Activity Statement - See Tax Activity Statement (TAS)
• Allocation Account - the place in the general ledger where you would like a Transaction to appear. It is also sometimes referred to as a transaction ‘coding’. In Saasu we use the term ‘Account’.
• Alpha Software -is a very early release of new software that is risky to use for commercial purposes.
• Beta - Beta Software is an early release of new software that may still be work in progress but is often largely functional and may be very workable if used with care.
• Bookkeeping (book-keeping or book keeping) - recording of all financial transactions undertaken by an individual or organization
• Business File - see File
• Company - An organisation/organization. There are two types in Saasu, a Contact Org (such as your clients and suppliers) and a Business File Org (such as your business).
• Contact - a person at a company you want to track, typically clients, prospects, suppliers, partners and employees, because we wish to report some information at person level and some information at contact level.
• Contact Org - an organisation(organization), firm or company which may have one or more people contacts (Contact Person) within it, see Contact. Each Business File (also called Org) may have multiple Contact Orgs within it (typically hundreds or them). One of the Contact Orgs may include the name and address of the owner of the Business File.
• Contact Person - one of the individual people at a firm, see contact.
• Current Earnings - current financial years income less cost of sales and less expenses.
• Dashboard - a bunch of information that shows on the right hand side of your desktop after you sign in. It can be changed to hold nothing or lots of things. The sorts of things that can be shown are constantly being enhanced with little blocks of information we call widgets, each widget can be a different piece of information such as your profit/loss, balance sheet, who you owe and lots more.
• Debits and Credits - entries in your accounts that add or reduce funds in your Accounts and Bank Accounts. When you withdraw money from your bank account your Bank records it as a Debit entry but in your accounting records it’s a Credit entry.
• Debt - something someone owes someone
• Debtor - someone who owes something
• Desktop - the main work space you see once you have signed in and selected a business to work on. It has a menu on the top left and a workspace on the right. The workspace changes depending n your menu selection and it usually shows the dashboard.
• ERP (and ERP lite) - Enterprise(Enterprize) Resource Planning - means business software (or software delivered as a SaaS or managed service) for most if not all aspects of company information management such as finances, relationships, activities, inventory/assets, management and more.
• File (also called an Org or Business File) - the collection of financial records on saasu.com related to one person, company or other legal entity(or Org), your subscription with us may have many files within it or just one. Most subscriptions have just one file. Most people work on one file for their business and perhaps one for personal use and they may also have access to self service for some others such as their suppliers who also use us. Saasu is a multi-tenant SaaS so a file is not actually a traditional file, it is a sophisticated virtual file in one of databases that links all your data into one logical unit. See also My Saasu
• Icon - the small images (pictures) on our site that typically represent links to related functions, pages, screens or information
• GST - Goods & Services Tax. See VAT and Sales Tax.
• Multi-tenant - Real SaaS offerings like Saasu have multi-subscriptions (businesses) and multiple files and multi users - all in one instance. This allows better cost sharing and centralised management for backups, security, support and more.
• MOMS - Nordic term for VAT. Danish: Meromsætningsafgift, Norwegian: merverdiavgift (MVA), Swedish: mervärdesskatt, earlier mervärdesomsättningsskatt, Icelandic: virðisaukaskattur(VSK). See VAT.
• NetAccounts - Our old name
• OMS - See MOMS
• Order Management System - A trader’s process for collecting, tracking, executing and preparing trades for settlement.
• Org - short for Saasu Organisation(organization), this is our name for a File (also called Business File) or collection of data held by us on behalf of your Organisation. See also - Organisation.
• Organisation (also Organization) - a legal entity such as a company (or a not-for-profit or a sole trader); here it generally also includes the legal records held by us on behalf of the entity as part of a subscription.
• PDF - Portable Document Format
• Retained Earnings - Retained earnings are accumulated profits or losses from previous year’s that remain in the organisation.
• SaaS - See Software-as-a-Service
• Saasu - the SaaS utility company that makes sophisticated business software as easy to get and use as any other utility - e.g. turning on a tap or a light switch
• Saasu Org - see Org
• Saasu User - a registered person, identified by a unique name (usually their emaill address) and (system internal and private) identification number on the Saasu.com system. Each user may be the billing contact for a subscription. They may also have varying levels of access (roles) to multiple other subscriptions and multiple business files (Orgs) within each Subscription.
• Sales Tax - Tax levied on the total value of the exchange. See also GST, TVA, MVA, VAT.
• Software-as-a-Service - Provision of shared software applications across the internet.
• Subscription - one or more Orgs and one or more Users linked together under one financial relationship held with Saasu.com - See Org.
• TVA - Taxe sur la valeur ajoutée. See VAT.
• User - See also Saasu User.
• VAT -Value Added Tax - It is levied on the added value that results from each exchange. See also Sales Tax.
• VSK - See MOMS
• Zone - a country or legal jurisidiction or sub-set of either that has particular business operating rules or culture (for example a different tax rate)