Encyclopedia
What the objects actually mean
Not “how to create a sales invoice in ERPNext” — that dates the moment the UI changes. What an invoice is: the obligation it creates, the rules that must hold, what goes wrong in real businesses, and only then how ERPNext models it.
These are business architecture questions, not product questions. ERPNext is one implementation of the answer. Machine-readable index for anyone building on top of this.
Sales
- CustomerA customer is a party that has an established commercial relationship with a business and can be billed for goods or services.
- Sales OrderA sales order is a seller's confirmed commitment to supply specified goods or services to a customer at agreed prices and dates.
- QuotationA quotation is a seller's formal offer to supply specified goods or services at stated prices, valid for a stated period.
- ContactA contact is a person associated with one or more parties a business deals with, reachable by name and channel.
- AddressAn address is a physical or registered location associated with a party, used for delivery, billing or statutory identification.
Procurement
- Purchase OrderA purchase order is a buyer's binding commitment to acquire specified goods or services from a supplier at agreed terms.
- SupplierA supplier is a party from which a business acquires goods or services and to which it therefore owes payment.
- Purchase ReceiptA purchase receipt is the record that specified goods physically arrived from a supplier and entered the buyer's control.
- Purchase InvoiceA purchase invoice is a supplier's demand for payment that creates a liability in the buyer's accounts.
Inventory
- Delivery NoteA delivery note is the record that specified goods physically left the seller's control and were transferred to the buyer.
- ItemAn item is a distinct good or service that a business buys, sells, stocks or manufactures, identified by a unique code.
- WarehouseA warehouse is a defined location at which stock is held and against which stock movements are recorded.
- ReturnA return is the movement of goods back from a buyer to a seller, reversing all or part of a completed delivery.
Finance
- InvoiceAn invoice is a document that creates a legally enforceable obligation for a buyer to pay a seller a stated amount by a stated date.
- PaymentA payment is a transfer of money that discharges some or all of an obligation between two parties.
- Credit NoteA credit note is a document that reduces or cancels an amount a customer owes, by reversing all or part of a previously issued invoice.
- General LedgerThe general ledger is the complete, permanent record of every financial transaction a business has posted, organised by account.
- Chart of AccountsA chart of accounts is the structured list of every account against which a business records financial transactions.
- Bank StatementA bank statement is the bank's record of every movement into and out of an account over a period, against which a business reconciles its own books.
Systems
- GSTINA GSTIN is a 15-character registration number issued to a business for a specific Indian state, under which that business collects and remits GST for operations in that state.
- CompanyA company is a legal entity that owns assets, incurs liabilities, files its own statutory accounts, and under which all transactions of a business unit are recorded.
- Tax RuleA tax rule is the logic that determines which tax rates apply to a transaction, based on what is being sold, who is buying, and where the supply takes place.
- Approval WorkflowAn approval workflow is a defined sequence of authorisations a document must obtain before it becomes binding or actionable.
- EmployeeAn employee is a person engaged by a business under a contract of employment, carrying a payroll identity and a set of system permissions.
More coming, one chain at a time
The order-to-cash chain first — lead, opportunity, quotation, sales order, delivery note, invoice, payment, credit note — then procure-to-pay, master data, inventory and the entity/compliance chain. Published in chains rather than alphabetically, because a half-built graph teaches nobody: an invoice only means something next to the order before it and the payment after it.