Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations, 3rd Edition

Appendix 13AGLOSSARY OF BASIC TECHNICAL TERMS

All disciplines have a vocabulary spoken by the experts. In the technology arena, the explosion of terms and acronyms, tech speak, leaves many feeling that it is a language they can never understand.

Accounting

Accounting programs perform all the routine and complicated tasks of accounting. Many programs are sold in modules, such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, and Payroll, while others for home or small business or small nonprofits are available as a complete package. Most businesses, when performing their accounting functions manually, had to choose single-entry accounting as their method of recording transactions. With the use of computers, double-entry accounting is the standard.

Client/Server

Client/Server technology has made it possible to replace or enhance mainframes or midrange computers in a way that peer-to-peer or traditional server-based networks have not. While the increase in PC capabilities has been enormous, the size and requirements of data-processing needs of many larger organizations cannot be handled on a PC and still require the speed and magnitude of a mainframe or midrange computer to store and process their central data. Mainframe technologies were not been as user-friendly as PC technologies, so a bridge between the two, client/server, enabled the two technologies to merge.

Communication Technologies

Technologies enhancing or replacing the capabilities of the phone line have continued, ...