MultiLedger and Accounting Glossary
This appendix contains a glossary of accounting terms, as well as terms related to MultiLedger Canada and your computer.
Accrual Accounting – a method of accounting in which transactions are recorded in the period that they occur, which is not necessarily when cash changes hands.
ASCII – an abbreviation for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It is a standard way of representing text in computer files.
Assets– property owned by the company, such as cash, inventory, furniture, equipment, and buildings.
Audit Trail – records of the transactions of a company.
Balance Sheet – a report that lists the assets, liabilities, and equity in a company as of a certain date.
Bank Reconciliation – a screen in MultiLedger Canada used to reconcile the cash accounts with the bank statements.
Beginning Balances – those account balances that are carried forward from a previous accounting period.
Cash Accounting – a method of accounting in which revenues are recorded when cash is received and expenses are recorded when cash is paid.
Cash Flow Statement– a report that shows the cash in and out for a given period of time.
Chart of Accounts – the account numbers and descriptions that a company uses to record all transactions.
Check Box – a small square box that appears in a dialog box used to choose an option.
Click– positioning the pointer on the object to be selected, and then pressing and releasing the mouse button.
Close Box– a small square box in the upper left-hand corner of the title bar of the current window or dialog box on Macintosh, or the ‘X’ box in the upper right-hand corner of the current window on Windows.
Close Year – an accounting procedure in which the balances in the income and expense accounts are transferred to the balance sheet (to Equity).
Control Buttons – buttons that are used to cause an action to take place. The action is indicated by the button title.
Customer Invoices – a screen in MultiLedger Canada used to record sales of items and generate invoices.
Customer Payments – a screen used to record payments on account from customers.
Dialog Box – a box where choices are made or data is entered.
Disbursements Journal – a journal used to record cheques for items not entered in accounts payable.
Double-click – positioning the pointer on the object to be selected, and then clicking twice in quick succession with the mouse button.
Double Entry Accounting – a method of accounting in which each transaction has equal debit and credit amounts. In this way, the accounts remain balanced.
Drag – the act of positioning the pointer over the item to be dragged, and then holding the mouse button down while moving the mouse.
Equity (Owner’s Equity) – the rights to the properties of a business, such as common stock and retained earnings.
Expenses – expenditure for operating costs of an accounting period.
Export – the capability to move data into a text file, which can be used by other applications.
Financial Snapshot– a report that shows a summary of cash, receivables, payables, inventory, and several financial ratios.
Fiscal Year – the twelve-month accounting period used by a company.
Format – the ability to define the placement of fields for cheques.
General Journal – a journal used to record transactions that do not fit within the scope of the Receipts or Disbursements Journal, such as depreciation or amortization adjustments.
General Ledger – a collection of ledger accounts that track a company’s financial activities.
Icon– a picture on the desktop that represents a file.
Income – revenues received by a company, usually from sales.
Income Statement – a report that shows the income and expenses of a company for a given time period.
Item Purchases – a screen in MultiLedger Canada used to record purchases of items.
Interface Accounts – a screen used to assign ledger accounts to posting categories.
Liabilities– any debts owed by a company, such as accounts payable or sales taxes payable.
Payables Journal – a journal used to record payables.
Pointer– the small shape on the screen that follows the movement of the mouse (usually an arrow).
Profit Center – a portion of a company that is responsible for its own income and expenses.
Radio Button – a hollow button which, when clicked on, becomes filled in with a black circle. Radio buttons are a means of making a single choice from several related alternatives within a dialog.
Receipts Journal – a journal used to record deposits to cash accounts for items not entered in accounts receivable.
Retained Earnings – that portion of Owner’s Equity which represents the retained net income/loss of a company.
Reversing Entry – an entry that reverses a previous entry.
Sales Journal – a journal used to record sales and generate invoices.
Scroll – to move lines of text within a box so that a different portion of the text may be viewed.
Select – to use the mouse to click and drag across some information in order to highlight it.
Text File – a file that can be opened by word processing and other software packages.
Trial Balance – a listing of all of the accounts from the chart of accounts along with their balances.
Vendor Payments – a screen used to record payments to vendors and to generate cheques.
Year-to-date – the total balance of an account from the first period in the fiscal year to the current period.