Accounting Automation Glossary

OCR (Optical Character Recognition)

Technology that converts scanned documents and images into machine-readable text.

Machine Learning

A type of AI that learns patterns from data to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed.

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

AI technology that enables computers to understand and process human language.

AI Document Processing

Using artificial intelligence to automatically extract, classify, and process data from documents.

Intelligent Automation

The combination of AI and process automation to handle complex, judgment-intensive tasks.

Blueprint Automation

A configurable automation for a specific document workflow, built by describing the process in plain language.

AI Accounting Automation

The use of artificial intelligence to automate manual accounting tasks, particularly document-heavy workflows.

Structured Data Extraction

The process of pulling specific, organized fields from unstructured documents like PDFs or emails.

Unstructured Data

Data that doesn't have a predefined format or organization — like PDFs, emails, and scanned documents.

AI Agent

An AI system that autonomously takes actions to complete a goal, rather than just answering questions.

Accounts Payable (AP)

Money a business owes to suppliers for goods or services received but not yet paid.

Accounts Receivable (AR)

Money owed to a business by its customers for goods or services delivered but not yet paid.

General Ledger (GL)

The master record of all financial transactions in a business, organized by account.

Three-Way Match

The process of matching a supplier invoice against its purchase order and goods receipt before approving payment.

Chart of Accounts

A structured list of all financial accounts used in a company's general ledger.

Journal Entry

A record of a financial transaction in the accounting system, showing which accounts are debited and credited.

Bank Reconciliation

The process of matching a company's internal records to its bank statement to identify discrepancies.

Invoice Processing

The end-to-end workflow of receiving, validating, approving, and recording supplier invoices.

Month-End Close

The monthly accounting process of finalizing all transactions, reconciling accounts, and producing financial statements.

Trial Balance

A report listing all GL account balances to verify that total debits equal total credits.

Expense Management

The process of tracking, approving, and reimbursing employee business expenses.

Financial Reporting

The process of producing financial statements that communicate a company's financial performance.

Cash Flow

The movement of money into and out of a business over a period of time.

Accounts Reconciliation

The process of verifying that two sets of records agree — typically an internal account balance against an external statement.

Vendor Management

The processes for onboarding, managing, and monitoring supplier relationships and payments.

Payment Processing

The execution of approved payments to vendors, employees, or other parties.

Cost Center

A department or unit that incurs costs but does not directly generate revenue.

Fixed Assets

Long-term tangible assets used in business operations, recorded on the balance sheet and depreciated over time.

Depreciation

The systematic allocation of a fixed asset's cost over its useful life.

Payroll Automation

Using software to automatically calculate, process, and record employee compensation and deductions.

Workflow Automation

Using software to automatically execute a sequence of tasks that would otherwise require manual effort.

Data Extraction

The process of retrieving specific data from source documents or systems for further processing.

Audit Trail

A chronological record that traces every action taken on a document or transaction back to its source.

Data Provenance

The documented history of where data came from and how it was transformed.

ETL (Extract, Transform, Load)

A data integration process that extracts data from sources, transforms it into the right format, and loads it into a destination system.

Document Workflow

The defined sequence of steps a document goes through from receipt to final processing and storage.

Data Mapping

Defining how data fields from a source document correspond to fields in a destination system.

Exception Handling

The process of identifying, routing, and resolving documents or transactions that don't match expected rules.

Straight-Through Processing (STP)

The percentage of transactions processed end-to-end without manual intervention.

ERP Data Entry

The manual process of entering transaction data from source documents into an ERP system.

SOC 2

A security and compliance framework that certifies how a service provider handles customer data.

GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles)

The standard accounting rules and procedures used in the United States.

IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards)

The international accounting standards used in over 140 countries outside the United States.

Internal Controls

Policies and procedures designed to prevent errors, fraud, and ensure accurate financial reporting.

Audit-Ready

A state in which financial records are complete, traceable, and organized for external or internal audit.

ERP Integration

Connecting an external system to an ERP to automatically exchange data without manual re-entry.

API Integration

A technical connection between two software systems that allows them to exchange data automatically.

Data Validation

The process of checking extracted or entered data against rules to confirm it is accurate and complete.

Purchase Order (PO) Matching

The process of matching an invoice against its corresponding purchase order to verify quantities and prices.

Accrual Accounting

An accounting method that records revenue and expenses when they are earned or incurred, not when cash changes hands.