Before you start implementation, lets get familiar with the terminology used and some basic concepts in ERPNext.
This represents the Company records for which ERPNext is setup. With this same setup, you can create multiple Company records, each representing a different legal entity. The accounting for each Company will be different, but they will share the Customer, Supplier and Item records.
Setup > Company > Companies
Represents a customer. A Customer can be an individual or an organizations. You can create multiple Contacts and Addresses for each Customer.
Selling > Customer
Represents a supplier of goods or services. Your telephone company is a Supplier, so is your raw materials Supplier. Again, a Supplier can be an individual or an organization and has multiple Contacts and Addresses.
Buying > Supplier
A Product, sub-product or Service that is either bought, sold or manufactured and is uniquely identified.
Stock > Item
An Account is a heading under which financial and business transactions are carried on. For example, “Travel Expense” is an account, “Customer Zoe”, “Supplier Mae” are accounts. ERPNext creates accounts for Customers and Suppliers automatically.
Accounts > Chart of Accounts
An address represents location details of a Customer or Supplier. These can be of different locations such as Head Office, Factory, Warehouse, Shop etc.
Selling > Address
An individual Contact belongs to a Customer or Supplier or is just an independent. A Contact has a name and contact details like email and phone number.
Selling > Contact
A list of all Communication with a Contact or Lead. All emails sent from the system are added to the Communication table.
Support > Communication
A table of sale price for an Item. An Item can have multiple prices based on Customer / Supplier or Territory etc..
Selling > Setup > Price List
Buying > Setup > Price List
Represents a Financial Year or Accounting Year. You can operate multiple Fiscal Years at the same time. Each Fiscal Year has a start date and an end date and transactions can only be recorded in this period. When you “close” a fiscal year, it's balances are transferred as “opening” balances for the next fiscal year.
Setup > Company > Fiscal Years
A Cost Center is like an Account, but the only difference is that it's structure represents your business more closely than Accounts. For example in your Chart of Accounts, you separate your expenses by type (say travel, marketing etc). In your Chart of Cost Centers, you can separate them by product line or business group (for example online sales, retail sales)
Accounts > Chart of Cost Centers
A document that contains General Ledger (GL) entries and the sum of Debits and Credits of those entries is the same. In ERPNext you can update Payments, Returns etc using Journal Vouchers.
Accounts > Journal Vouchers
A bill sent to Customers for delivery of Items (goods or services).
Accounts > Sales Invoice
A bill sent by a Supplier for delivery of Items (goods or services).
Accounts > Purchase Invoice
ERPNext allows you to book transactions in multiple currencies. There is only one currency for your books of accounts though. While posting your Invoices, payments in different currencies, the amounts are converted to the default currency by the specified conversion rate.
Setup > Company > Currencies
A classification of Customers, usually based on market segment.
Selling > Setup (sidebar) > Customer Group
A person who could be a future source of business. A Lead may generate Opportunities. (from: “may lead to a sale”).
Selling > Lead
A potential sale. (from: “opportunity for a business”).
Selling > Opportunity
A note confirming the terms of delivery and price of an Item (product or service) by the Customer. Deliveries, Production Orders and Invoices are made on basis of Sales Orders.
Selling > Sales Order
A geographical area classification for sales management. You can set targets for Territories and each sale is linked to a Territory.
Selling > Setup > Territory
A third party distributer / dealer / affiliate / commission agent who sells the company’s products usually for a commission.
Selling > Setup > Sales Partner
Someone who pitches to the Customer and closes deals. You can set targets for Sales Persons and tag them in transactions.
Selling > Setup > Sales Person
A contract given to a Supplier to deliver the specified Items at the specified cost, quantity, dates and other terms.
Buying > Purchase Order
A request made by a system User, or automatically generated by ERPNext based on reorder level or projected quantity in Production Plan for purchasing a set of Items.
Buying > Material Request
A logical Warehouse against which stock entries are made.
Stock > Warehouse
Material transfer from a Warehouse, to a Warehouse or from one Warehouse to another.
Stock > Stock Entry
A list of Items with quantities for shipment. A Delivery Note will reduce the stock of Items for the Warehouse from where you ship. A Delivery Note is usually made against a Sales Order.
Stock > Delivery Note
A note stating that a particular set of Items were received from the Supplier, most likely against a Purchase Order.
Stock > Purchase Receipt
A unique number given to a particular unit of an Item.
Stock > Serial Number
A number given to a group of units of a particular Item that may be purchased or manufactured in a group.
Stock > Batch
A unified table for all material movement from one warehouse to another. This is the table that is updated when a Stock Entry, Delivery Note, Purchase Receipt, Sales Invoice (POS) is made.
Update Stock of multiple Items from a spreadsheet (CSV) file.
Stock > Stock Reconciliation (in sidebar)
A note prepared to record certain parameters of an Item at the time of Receipt from Supplier, or Delivery to Customer.
Stock > Tools > Quality Inspection
A classification of Item.
Stock > Setup (sidebar) > Item Group
Record of a person who has been in present or past, in the employment of the company.
Human Resources > Employee
A record of an approved or rejected request for leave.
Human Resource > Leave Application
A type of leave (for example, Sick Leave, Maternity Leave etc.)
Human Resource > Leave and Attendance (sidebar) > Leave Type
A tool that will help creation of multiple Salary Slips for Employees.
Human Resource > Salary and Payroll > Process Payroll
A record of the monthly salary given to an Employee.
Human Resource > Salary Slip
A template identifying all the components of an Employee’s salary (earnings) and tax and other social security deductions.
Human Resource > Salary and Payroll > Salary Structure
A record of the performance of an Employee over a specified period based on certain parameters.
Human Resources > Appraisal
A template recording the different parameters of Employee performance and their weightage for a particular role.
Human Resources > Employee Setup > Appraisal Template
A record indicating presence or absence of an Employee on a particular day.
Human Resources > Attendance
A list of Operations and Items with their quantities, that are required to produce another Item. A Bill of Materials (BOM) is used to plan purchases and do product costing.
Manufacturing > BOM
A place where a BOM operation takes place. It is useful to calculate the direct cost of the product.
Manufacturing > Workstation
A document signaling production (manufacture) of a particular Item with specified quantities.
Manufacturing > Production Order
A tool for automatic creation of Production Orders and Purchase Requests based on Open Sales Orders in a given period.
Manufacturing > Production Planning Tool
A short article that appears in the “Blog” section of the website generated from the ERPNext website module. Blog is a short from of “Web Log”.
Website > Blog Post
A web page with a unique URL (web address) on the website generated from ERPNext.
Website > Web Page
A user defined field on a form / table.
Setup > Customize ERPNext > Custom Field
This is the section where you set default values for various parameters of the system.
Setup > Data > Global Defaults
A title that can be set on a transaction just for printing. For example, you want to print a Quotation with a title “Proposal” or “Pro forma Invoice”.
Setup > Branding and Printing > Print Headings
Text of your terms of contract.
Selling > Setup > Terms and Conditions Template
How quantity is measured for an Item. For example (Kg, No, Pair, Packet) etc.
Stock > Setup > UOM