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User ManualNeed configuration, code or deployment details? In the Technical Manual: Feature ID Reference

Glossary

The words this manual uses, in plain language. Each term links to the page that explains it.

A · B · C · D · E · F · J · N · O · P · R · S · T · U · V · Numbers

A​

  • Account: one line of the chart of accounts, such as Cash on hand or Rent expense. Every amount the business records ends up in an account. See Chart of accounts.
  • Administrator: the person who sets up the business site, its users and its features. Also the name of the built-in role that has every permission. See Roles and permissions.

B​

  • Background job: long work, such as an import or a posting, that runs on the server while you keep working. You follow it on Tools > Jobs. See Background jobs.
  • Batch: one small step of a background job, for example 200 rows. The job saves its place after each batch. See Background jobs.
  • Bill: what a vendor charges the business, with purchase and expense lines, paid right away or on account. See Bills.
  • Business use: the share of a vehicle's miles driven for the business. See Trip log.
  • Attachment: a PDF or image, such as a scanned invoice, kept with an entry. See Attachments.
  • Balance sheet: what the business owns (assets) and owes (liabilities), and what belongs to its owners (equity), on a date. See Financial statements.
  • Bank rule: words that recognize a bank transaction by its description and categorize or exclude it. See Bank rules.
  • Book value: a fixed asset's cost less the depreciation posted. See Fixed assets.
  • Business day: the working day of the business. It can start after midnight, for example at 04:00, so late-night sales count on the day they started. See Business profile.
  • Business profile: who the business is: its legal name, DBA, owner, EIN, address and phone, plus when its fiscal year and business day start. See Business profile.

C​

  • Chart of accounts: the list of all the accounts the business keeps its books in. See Chart of accounts.
  • Customer: a person or company the business sells to on credit, invoices or receives other income from. See Customers.
  • Collected for others: the part of a category's sales that is not income of the business, such as the lottery's share, owed to someone else. See Daily sales.
  • Credit sale: a sale on a customer's house account, paid later. See Credit sales and payments.
  • Credit: the right-hand side of a journal line. A credit increases a liability, equity or income account, and decreases an asset or an expense account. See Journal entries.
  • Closed period: a month of the books that nothing can be posted, changed or reversed in any more. See Periods.
  • Checkpoint: the saved place a background job continues from after a pause, a restart or a requeue, so no work is done twice. See Background jobs.
  • CSV: a text file of rows and columns separated by commas, as spreadsheets save it. See Import files.

D​

  • Depreciation: the part of a fixed asset's cost counted as an expense each month of its life. See Fixed assets.
  • Check cashing: paying out cash for a customer's check, less a fee, and depositing the check. See Check cashing.
  • Daily close: the check of a day's cash against its sales, card totals and drawer, posted to the books. See Daily close.
  • Department: what the Windows app called a sales category.
  • Debit: the left-hand side of a journal line. A debit increases an asset or an expense account, and decreases a liability, equity or income account. See Journal entries.
  • Daily sales: what the register took in on a business day, by sales category, posted as one journal entry. See Daily sales.
  • Draft: a journal entry that is not in the books yet. It affects no balance and can still change or be deleted. See Journal entries.
  • DBA ("doing business as"): the name the business trades under, shown on invoices and reports. See Business profile.
  • Default term: what a list searches when you type plain words without a filter name. See Search and filter lists.
  • Deposit schedule: how often the federal payroll taxes are deposited, monthly or semiweekly, set by the IRS from the lookback period. See Payroll filings and tax payments.

E​

  • EIN (Employer Identification Number): the nine-digit federal tax number of the business, written 12-3456789. Al-Mohaseb stores it protected and shows only the last four digits. See Business profile.
  • EFTPS: the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System, where federal payroll tax deposits are made. See Payroll filings and tax payments.
  • EFIN / ERO: the electronic filing identification number the IRS gives a firm, and the electronic return originator, the firm's person responsible for e-filing. See Clients of the firm.

F​

  • Feature: one part of Al-Mohaseb that an administrator turns on or off, such as Accounting. See Features and settings.
  • Fixed asset: equipment, a vehicle or another item the business uses for years, depreciated over its life. See Fixed assets.
  • Gross profit: income less the cost of sales. See Financial statements.
  • Excluded transaction: a bank transaction left out of the books, such as a transfer between your own accounts. See Review transactions.
  • Filter term: a name, a colon and a value typed in a list's search box, such as status:failed, to narrow the list. See Search and filter lists.
  • Fiscal year: the business's 12-month accounting year, named after the calendar year it ends in. See Business profile.
  • Filing frequency: how often the business files its sales, use and withholding return: monthly, quarterly or once a year, as Michigan Treasury assigned it. See Sales tax returns.
  • FICA: Social Security and Medicare, withheld from each paycheck and matched by the employer. See Employees and pay runs.

J​

  • Invoice: a service ticket on account: the customer owes it until they pay. See Service tickets and invoices.
  • Journal entry: one event recorded in the books as debits and credits on accounts, whose debits and credits are equal. See Journal entries.

L​

  • Lottery book: a pack of instant tickets of one game, received from the lottery, put on display in a box and counted every day until it sells out or is returned. See Lottery.

N​

  • Needs attention: a background job that kept hitting a problem and has used all its tries. Fix the cause, then requeue it. See Background jobs.

O​

  • Other income: income that is not a sale, such as rent received or a commission. See Other income.
  • On account: not paid yet; the amount is owed by a customer or to a vendor. See Payment methods.
  • Opening balances: the balance of each account on the day before the business starts keeping its books in Al-Mohaseb, posted as one journal entry. See Opening balances.
  • Opening Balance Equity: the system account that takes the difference between the debits and the credits of the opening balances. See Opening balances.

P​

  • Period: one month of the fiscal year. Periods are closed when their month is finished. See Periods.

  • Post: put a journal entry in the books. A posted entry gets a number and never changes again. See Journal entries.

  • Over or short: the closing count of the cash drawer less what it should hold after the day's cash sales. See Daily close.

  • Payment method: a way the business receives or pays money, such as cash, check, card or on account. See Payment methods.

  • Permission: the right to do one thing, such as View the chart of accounts. Roles bundle permissions. See Roles and permissions.

  • Prepaid sales tax (fuel): sales tax the fuel supplier charges by the gallon on each delivery, credited on the sales tax return. See Fuel.

  • Profit and loss: income less costs and expenses over a period, ending in the net profit. See Financial statements.

  • Pay run: the paychecks of one pay period, worked out from gross to net and posted to the books together. See Employees and pay runs.

  • PTIN: the preparer tax identification number of a person who prepares returns: P and eight digits. See Clients of the firm.

R​

  • Reversal: a journal entry with the debits and credits of another entry swapped, which cancels it. Posted entries are corrected by reversing them. See Journal entries.
  • Recurring entry: a journal entry that repeats on a schedule, such as monthly rent, created for you as a draft or posted on each date. See Recurring entries.
  • Revenue share: the percentage of a category's sales that is income of the business, such as 5% for lottery sales. See Sales categories.
  • Reopen: make the latest closed period open again, with a reason, so a correction can be posted in it. See Periods.
  • Requeue: start a failed or needs-attention job again from its checkpoint, with a fresh set of tries. See Background jobs.
  • Role: a named bundle of permissions, such as Bookkeeper. Each user has one or more roles. See Roles and permissions.

S​

  • Standard mileage rate: the amount a mile the IRS allows to deduct for business driving, set every year and sometimes in the middle of one. See Trip log.
  • Receipt: a service ticket paid on the spot. See Service tickets and invoices.
  • Retained earnings: the profits of past fiscal years kept in the business, shown in the equity of the balance sheet. See Financial statements.
  • Sales tax exemption: a reason sales are exempt from sales tax, with the line of the return they are deducted on. See Sales categories.
  • Sales category: a line the daily sales or purchases are entered by, such as Grocery or Lottery, with its sales tax treatment and account. See Sales categories.
  • Service ticket: the record of the work and goods sold to a customer, with one line per item. See Service tickets and invoices.
  • Slice: one turn a background job takes before it lets other jobs run. Long jobs take several turns. See Background jobs.
  • Subaccount: an account placed under a parent account of the same type. It adds up into the parent on reports. See Chart of accounts.
  • System account: a protected account every business has. You can rename it, but you can't delete it, make it inactive or change its type. See Chart of accounts.
  • Sales tax discount: what Michigan lets a business keep of the sales tax for filing and paying on time. See Sales tax returns.

T​

  • Tax ID: a vendor's EIN, SSN or ITIN, kept protected and shown only with its last four digits. See Vendors.
  • Trip log: the record of the trips of the business vehicles, with their miles and purpose. See Trip log.
  • Transfer to the books: posting reviewed bank transactions as journal entries; it can be undone. See Review transactions.
  • Tender: a way customers pay that is not cash, such as a card machine, EBT or WIC. See Daily close.
  • Trial balance: the list of every account's balance on a date, in a debit or a credit column whose totals are equal when the books balance. See Trial balance.
  • Tank variance: the gallons read in a fuel tank less what it should hold (the last reading, plus deliveries, less sales). See Fuel.
  • Tax content: the tax tables and rates of a year (such as the withholding tables of IRS Publication 15-T), loaded as data and verified before payroll relies on them. See Employees and pay runs.

U​

  • Undeposited Funds: the system account that holds the money taken in until it is deposited in the bank. See Daily sales.
  • Use tax: Michigan tax on goods used in the business without sales tax paid, such as items taken from stock or bought from out of state. See Sales tax returns.

V​

  • Vendor: a company or person the business buys from or pays. See Vendors.
  • Vendor payment: a payment that pays down what the business owes a vendor. See Vendor payments and 1099 totals.
  • Vendor category: a group of vendors that decides which entry screens list them. See Vendor categories.

Numbers​

  • 1099 vendor: a vendor whose payments are reported on a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC; it needs a tax ID. See Vendors.
  • W-4 / MI-W4: the forms an employee fills in to set their federal and Michigan withholding. See Employees and pay runs.
  • 941 / 940: the quarterly federal employment tax return (income tax withheld, Social Security and Medicare) and the yearly federal unemployment (FUTA) return. See Payroll filings and tax payments.
  • W-2 / W-3: the yearly wage and tax statement of each employee, and its transmittal with the totals. See Payroll filings and tax payments.