Business and ERP glossary for Bangladesh
The words that come up in a VAT conversation, a stock count or a vendor demo, defined plainly and with the Bangladeshi context that changes what they mean.
Every entry gives a plain definition, what is different about the term in Bangladesh, a worked example with real numbers, and where it appears in SORS ERP. The Bangladeshi part is usually the part that matters: a term can mean something slightly different here from what a general definition suggests.
VAT and compliance
Mushak forms, BIN, rebate and the vocabulary of an NBR conversation.
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What is Mushak?
Mushak is the Bangla abbreviation for value added tax and, in everyday use, the name of the numbered VAT forms issued under the VAT and SD Act 2012. When someone says "Mushak challan" they almost always mean the Mushak 6.3 tax invoice.
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What is BIN?
A BIN is the Business Identification Number issued by the NBR when a business registers for VAT. It identifies the taxpayer on every VAT document and is the number both sides of a transaction quote on a tax invoice.
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What is Input tax rebate?
Input tax rebate is the VAT you paid on purchases, set against the VAT you charged on sales, so that only the value you added is taxed. The difference is what you pay in the monthly return.
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What is Turnover tax?
Turnover tax is a simplified alternative to standard VAT for smaller businesses, charged on turnover at a lower rate instead of the standard rate with rebate. A business on turnover tax does not claim input tax rebate.
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What is Truncated rate?
A truncated rate is a VAT rate lower than the standard 15 per cent, applied to specific goods or services. Supplies at a truncated rate generally come with restricted or no input tax rebate.
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What is Exempt supply?
An exempt supply is one on which no VAT is charged and against which input tax rebate generally cannot be claimed. It is different from a zero rated supply, where the rate is nil but rebate may still be available.
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What is Zero rated supply?
A zero rated supply is taxable but at a rate of nil. Because it is still a taxable supply, input tax rebate on the purchases behind it is generally available, which is the practical difference from an exempt supply.
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What is VAT deducted at source?
VAT deducted at source is VAT withheld by the buyer from a supplier payment and deposited with the government directly. The supplier receives a Mushak 6.6 certificate for the amount withheld.
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What is VAT circle?
A VAT circle is the local NBR office a registered business belongs to, determined by where the business is located. Registration, queries and routine dealings go through the circle before they go anywhere else.
Accounting
The ledger terms behind every report your auditor asks for.
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What is Chart of accounts?
The chart of accounts is the structured list of every account a business posts to: assets, liabilities, equity, income and expenses. Every journal entry lands in one of them, so the chart decides what your reports can tell you.
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What is Journal entry?
A journal entry records a transaction as equal debits and credits against accounts. It is the atomic unit of double entry bookkeeping, and every report in an accounting system is a view over the journal.
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What is General ledger?
The general ledger is the complete record of every posting, organised by account. It is where you go to see the movement and closing balance of any single account over a period.
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What is Trial balance?
A trial balance lists the closing balance of every account, with total debits equal to total credits. It is the standard check that the books are internally consistent before financial statements are prepared.
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What is Party ledger?
A party ledger is the running account of one customer or supplier: every invoice, payment, return and adjustment in date order, with the outstanding balance after each.
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What is Aged receivables?
An aged receivables report groups money owed to you by how long it has been outstanding, typically in buckets such as current, 30, 60 and 90 days. It shows not just how much is owed but how stale it is.
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What is Bank reconciliation?
Bank reconciliation matches the transactions in your books against the transactions on your bank statement, so that the two agree and any difference is explained.
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What is Cost centre?
A cost centre is a tag on a transaction that says which part of the business it belongs to, such as an outlet, a department or a project. It lets you report profitability by unit without creating separate account trees.
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What is Depreciation?
Depreciation spreads the cost of a fixed asset across the years it is used, rather than charging the whole cost in the year of purchase. It is both an accounting requirement and a tax computation input.
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What is Accounting period?
An accounting period is the span a set of figures covers, and closing it means no further entries may be posted into it. Locking a period is what makes a reported figure stay reported.
Stock and purchasing
How goods are counted, valued, received and reordered.
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What is SKU?
A SKU is the unique code for one sellable thing: one product in one variant, size or configuration. Two colours of the same shirt are two SKUs, because they are counted, priced and reordered separately.
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What is Goods receipt note?
A goods receipt note records what physically arrived against a purchase order: quantities, condition and any shortfall. It is the document that turns an order into stock on hand.
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What is Purchase requisition?
A purchase requisition is an internal request to buy something, raised before any commitment to a supplier. It is the approval step that sits in front of the purchase order.
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What is Serial number tracking?
Serial number tracking records the individual identifier of each unit, so a specific physical item can be traced from the supplier who sent it to the customer who bought it.
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What is Batch and expiry?
Batch and expiry tracking groups stock by production lot and records the date each lot becomes unsellable, so goods can be sold, returned or recalled by batch rather than as an undifferentiated pile.
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What is FIFO?
FIFO is a stock valuation method that assumes the oldest units are sold first, so cost of goods sold is based on the earliest purchase prices and remaining stock is valued at the most recent ones.
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What is Weighted average cost?
Weighted average cost values stock at the average cost of all units on hand, recalculated as new purchases arrive. Every unit of an item carries the same cost regardless of which consignment it came from.
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What is Stock aging?
A stock aging report groups inventory by how long it has been sitting, so slow moving and dead stock separate out from what is actually turning over.
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What is Reorder level?
A reorder level is the quantity at which an item should be reordered, set so that stock arrives before the shelf empties. It accounts for how fast the item sells and how long the supplier takes.
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What is Backorder?
A backorder is a confirmed customer order for an item that is out of stock, held to be fulfilled when stock arrives rather than cancelled.
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What is Barcode?
A barcode is a machine readable label carrying an item code, scanned to identify a product without typing. In retail it is what makes a counter fast and accurate.
Sales and retail
Counter, credit, instalments, returns and warranty.
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What is Point of sale?
Point of sale is where a retail transaction is completed: the counter software that scans items, takes payment, prints a receipt and reduces stock in one action.
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What is Z-report?
A Z-report closes a counter session and summarises it: total sales, payments split by method, returns and the cash that should be in the drawer.
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What is EMI?
EMI is payment in equal monthly instalments, usually arranged through a bank credit card. The seller receives settlement from the bank while the customer pays over the tenure.
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What is Mobile financial services?
Mobile financial services are bank grade payment services delivered over mobile phones. In Bangladesh they are everyday retail payment rails rather than a niche channel.
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What is RMA?
An RMA is the authorised process for taking an item back: logged against the original sale, moved into a separate stock state, and tracked until it is repaired, replaced or refunded.
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What is Warranty?
A warranty is the seller or manufacturer commitment to repair or replace an item within a stated period. Honouring it depends on being able to prove when the item was sold and what covers it.
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What is Loyalty points?
Loyalty points reward repeat purchase by accruing value a customer can redeem later. The accounting question is that unredeemed points are a liability, not a marketing line.
Online selling
F-commerce, cash on delivery and getting paid by a courier.
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What is Cash on delivery?
Cash on delivery is payment collected by the courier when the parcel is handed over, and remitted to the seller later in a settlement. The sale and the money arrive at different times.
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What is Courier reconciliation?
Courier reconciliation matches the parcels a courier delivered, and the cash it collected, against the settlement it paid you, so undelivered, returned and unpaid consignments are identified.
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What is F-commerce?
F-commerce is selling through Facebook and Messenger rather than through a website: orders arrive as messages and comments, and are confirmed by conversation.
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What is Abandoned cart?
An abandoned cart is an online order a customer started and did not complete. Recovering some of them is usually the cheapest revenue available to a store.
HR and payroll
Attendance, payroll periods and income tax deduction.
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What is Payroll period?
A payroll period is the span one payroll run covers, normally a calendar month. Processing it means calculating gross pay, deductions and net pay for everyone in that period and then disbursing it.
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What is Income tax slab?
An income tax slab is a band of income taxed at a given rate. Payroll deduction applies the slabs to an employee's taxable income for the year and spreads the resulting tax across the months.
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What is Biometric attendance?
Biometric attendance records arrival and departure using a fingerprint or face reader rather than a signature, producing punch data that payroll can use directly.
Software
What the words on a vendor website actually mean.
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What is Headless commerce?
Headless commerce separates the storefront a customer sees from the system that holds products, stock, prices and orders, connecting them through an API. The storefront can be rebuilt without touching the back office.
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What is ERP?
An ERP is one system covering the parts of a business that share data: accounting, inventory, sales, purchasing, people and reporting. The point is not the feature list, it is that a sale updates stock and the ledger in the same action.
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What is Multi-tenant?
Multi-tenant software serves many separate businesses from one deployment, with each tenant's data isolated from the others. It is what makes cloud software affordable to run and quick to update.
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What is Progressive web app?
A progressive web app is a website that can be installed on a phone and opened like an app, with an icon on the home screen, without going through an app store.
Elsewhere on this site
- ERP solutions by module and industry What each module does for one particular trade, rather than in general. Only the combinations we can say something specific about are here.
- Mushak forms explained What each Mushak form is for, who has to keep it and when. Every page says plainly which forms SORS ERP produces and which it does not.
- Integrations: payments, couriers, SMS and hardware What connects, and how much of each connection is real. API integrated, manual entry and roadmap are labelled separately on every page.
- ERP alternatives in Bangladesh If you already use one of these and are weighing a change, each page keeps the incumbent's strengths in its own words and says where we are the weaker choice.
- ERP software across Bangladesh The software runs in a browser, so location does not change what it does. What location changes is which trades dominate and how we meet you, and both are worth being straight about.
See SORS ERP running on your own numbers
A 30-minute demo in Bangla or English, with your products, your VAT setup and your questions.