Accounting, in plain English

Money your business owes to vendors for goods or services you've already received but not yet paid for. Every unpaid vendor invoice is an accounts payable entry until the payment goes out.

In Bizdivers: the whole AP pipeline is automated, from vendors emailing invoices in to approval and payment. Start with Email your invoices in.

The mirror image of accounts payable: money your customers owe you for work you've already delivered and invoiced. It sits as an asset on your books until the customer pays.

In Bizdivers: customer invoices, deposits, and recurring billing live in the Revenue section of the sidebar.

Recording a revenue or expense in the period it actually happened, even though the cash hasn't moved yet. The classic example: you received a service in March but the invoice arrives in April, so you accrue the expense in March to keep that month's books honest.

In Bizdivers: the Close cockpit's Accruals & Adjustments section books these at period end and even suggests accruals it detects. See Close the month.

Two conventions for timing your books. Cash basis records income and expenses when money actually moves. Accrual basis records them when they're earned or incurred, which gives a truer picture of each month but takes more bookkeeping. Most growing businesses end up on accrual.

In Bizdivers: reports like the Trial Balance and General Ledger let you view either basis. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

A dollar limit that decides who must sign off on a transaction. Small amounts may auto-approve; bigger ones need an Approver; the biggest need a Manager or Admin. Thresholds turn "be careful with big payments" from a wish into a rule.

In Bizdivers: set auto-approve, L1, and L2 thresholds under Settings → AP Policy. See Review and approve an invoice.

Everything an auditor would ask for about one transaction, in one bundle: who prepared and approved it, the journal entry, the source documents, and the results of every control test it went through.

In Bizdivers: every transaction in the Internal Assessment module has a Download audit packet button that produces exactly this as a PDF. See Your books, continuously audited.

A chronological record of every meaningful action taken in a system: who did it, when, from where, and what changed. It's what turns "trust me" into "look it up."

In Bizdivers: the Audit Log under Accounting records sign-ins, settings changes, approvals, payments, and postings with before-and-after diffs. See The audit trail.

The process of comparing your books against your bank statement and explaining every difference, usually monthly. It's how errors, missed transactions, and fraud get caught.

In Bizdivers: synced transactions match automatically, months close in order with rolled-forward balances, and a finished reconciliation needs a second person's sign-off. See Reconcile your bank, and prove it.

The master list of accounts your business sorts money into: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses, each with a code. Every transaction lands in one or more of these accounts.

In Bizdivers: a standard chart of accounts is seeded automatically during signup, you can import an existing one from QuickBooks, and the AI codes incoming invoice lines against it. See Getting started.

An internal audit that runs all the time instead of as a year-end project: every transaction is tested against control rules the moment it posts, and findings surface immediately while they're still cheap to fix.

In Bizdivers: this is the product's core idea. The Internal Assessment module runs the tests and shows the results; you review findings, not spreadsheets. See Your books, continuously audited.

The two sides of every accounting entry. A debit increases assets and expenses; a credit increases liabilities, equity, and revenue. Every transaction records equal debits and credits, which is what keeps the books internally consistent.

In Bizdivers: journal entries show a live Balanced badge, and an unbalanced entry can't post at all. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

A deposit you've recorded in your books that the bank hasn't processed onto a statement yet. It's a normal timing difference, and it's one of the reconciling items that bridge your book balance to the bank's.

In Bizdivers: reconciliation reports itemize deposits in transit and outstanding checks so the bridge from statement to books is explicit. See Reconcile your bank, and prove it.

Spreading the cost of something long-lived (a laptop, a vehicle, equipment) across the months or years it's actually used, instead of expensing it all at once. Each period books a slice of the cost.

In Bizdivers: depreciation is one of the adjustment types in the Close cockpit's Accruals & Adjustments section. See Close the month.

The five-century-old system where every transaction touches at least two accounts: money doesn't just leave, it leaves one place and arrives in another. The built-in symmetry makes the books self-checking; if debits and credits don't match, something is wrong.

In Bizdivers: the ledger underneath all the automation is genuine double-entry, with journal entries, a trial balance, and a general ledger a bookkeeper can verify. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

Employer Identification Number, the nine-digit federal tax ID the IRS assigns to a business. It's the business equivalent of a Social Security number, and it's what a vendor's W-9 usually carries.

In Bizdivers: vendor records store the tax ID with its type (EIN for businesses, SSN for individuals), masked in the interface. See Vendor management.

A defined stretch of time, usually a month, that your books are organized around. Transactions post into a period, the period gets closed when its numbers are final, and locked when they must never change again.

In Bizdivers: periods move through Future → Open → Closed → Locked under Accounting → Fiscal Periods, with a pre-close checklist guarding the door. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

The IRS forms a business files each January reporting what it paid non-employees during the year: 1099-NEC for contractor services, 1099-MISC for rent, royalties, prizes, and similar. Each payment category has its own reporting threshold.

In Bizdivers: payments are tracked against thresholds all year and the forms generate with one click. See 1099 season without the scramble.

The form a US business collects from each contractor or vendor before paying them. It carries their legal name, tax classification, and taxpayer ID. You don't send it to the IRS; you keep it on file so January's 1099s are accurate.

In Bizdivers: W-9s arrive by email or upload, AI extracts the data, and a missing W-9 can hold payments automatically. See Collect and manage vendor W-9s.

The master record of everything: every posted transaction, organized by account, with running balances. All reports (trial balance, income statement, balance sheet) are views over the general ledger.

In Bizdivers: Accounting → General Ledger shows every posted line with drill-down into the full entry behind it, filterable by date and basis, exportable to CSV. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

A rule or mechanism built into a financial process so errors and fraud are prevented or caught, rather than hoped against. Classic examples: approval requirements, segregation of duties, reconciliations, and audit trails.

In Bizdivers: controls aren't a policy document, they're enforced by the software: approval gates, preparer-reviewer separation, payment holds, and continuous control tests. See Your books, continuously audited.

The atomic unit of double-entry bookkeeping: a dated record with at least one debit line and one credit line that balance exactly. Everything in the ledger is made of journal entries, whether typed by hand or generated by automation.

In Bizdivers: approved invoices and payments generate entries automatically; manual ones are created under Accounting → Journal Entries with a live balance check. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

The auditor's answer to "how big does a mistake have to be before anyone cares?" Amounts below the materiality threshold are too small to change any decision; amounts above it demand attention. Standards like AICPA AU-C 320 and ISA 320 define how it's set.

In Bizdivers: the Internal Assessment module uses configurable overall and performance materiality to decide what gets flagged, so you review what matters instead of everything. See Your books, continuously audited.

The monthly process of finalizing the books: all transactions posted, bank accounts reconciled, adjustments booked, and the period closed so the numbers stop moving. A disciplined close is what makes monthly reports trustworthy.

In Bizdivers: the Close cockpit tracks every blocker and refuses to close the period until they're resolved. See Close the month from the Close cockpit.

A payment you've recorded and sent that hasn't cleared the bank yet. Like deposits in transit, it's a normal timing difference that reconciliation must account for when bridging the books to the statement.

In Bizdivers: reconciliation reports group outstanding checks and deposits in transit explicitly, with the note that together they bridge the statement to the books. See Reconcile your bank, and prove it.

Something you paid for up front that benefits future periods, like an annual insurance premium or a yearly software subscription. Instead of one big expense, you book an asset and expense a slice each period (amortization).

In Bizdivers: prepaid setup and amortization are adjustment types in the Close cockpit. See Close the month.

The principle that no single person should control a financial transaction from start to finish. The person who enters a bill shouldn't approve it; the person who prepares a reconciliation shouldn't sign it off. It's the single most effective fraud control there is.

In Bizdivers: enforced by the software: the preparer can never be the approver, and the control tests flag any entry where that rule was bent. See Your books, continuously audited.

Taxpayer Identification Number, the umbrella term for the numbers the IRS uses to identify taxpayers: an EIN for a business, an SSN for an individual, and a few rarer types. A vendor's W-9 exists to get their TIN on file correctly.

In Bizdivers: TINs extracted from W-9s are stored masked, and a missing TIN on a threshold-crossing vendor is flagged as a 1099 exception. See Collect and manage vendor W-9s.

A report listing every account with its debit or credit balance, and the totals at the bottom. If total debits equal total credits, the ledger is internally consistent; if not, something is broken and month-end can't proceed.

In Bizdivers: Accounting → Trial Balance shows a clear Balanced or Out of Balance indicator for any as-of date and basis, and a balanced trial balance is a blocking item on the close checklist. See The bookkeeper's toolkit.

Any business or person you buy from: suppliers, contractors, consultants, landlords, utilities. Vendor records are where invoices, payments, W-9s, and 1099s all attach, which is why clean vendor data matters so much.

In Bizdivers: vendors have a real lifecycle with an approval gate, and a vendor no one approved can't receive payments. See Vendors: from first invoice to approved partner.