Glossary

Short definitions for the terms you'll meet across Kraal and these docs, with a link to the page that covers each in depth.

Accounting Continuity

Kraal's data-portability workflow for building a self-describing package of supported accounting records, evidence, source files, and scope information at a stated cutoff. It can be used during normal operations and does not itself freeze work or disconnect integrations. See Accounting Continuity & Data Portability.

Accrual Identification

The close stage where Kraal surfaces accruals the period may be missing — vendors that bill on a cadence and went silent, prior accruals that stopped recurring, and bills that arrived after cutoff for in-period service. Candidates land in the accruals register with their reason and evidence. See Accrual Identification.

Always-approval list

An older name. What waits for a person is on How Kraal earns autonomy and Autonomy & Safety. Posted history, money, and contact outside the firm need the rules or a person.

Approval-first

Assisted. Kraal prepares the work and does not change the books, or contact anyone, until a person approves. Pause stops all new automatic work at once. Neither is a separate product. See How Kraal earns autonomy and Autonomy & Safety.

Max and Assisted

The per-client setting. Max does the routine work within the rules your firm sets. Assisted prepares the work and waits for a person before it posts or contacts anyone. Pause stops all new automatic work. Minimal, Controlled, and Manual are older names and are not settings. See How Kraal earns autonomy and Autonomy & Safety.

Approver role

An older name for roles on the retired rules table. Firm roles (Owner, Administrator, Manager, Employee) still decide what a person may do. See Team, Roles & Permissions.

Audit Center

Client-wide history across approvals, task outcomes, execution results, and connected accounting activity. See Audit Center.

Auto-Posted Entries

The review ledger of everything Kraal posted on its own. Open it from Receipts, filtered to Kraal, to review, undo, or correct automation activity. See Autonomy & Safety.

Budget (spending control)

A spending limit for one account, against one cost center or one project, over a fiscal-year window. Set and submitted on the accounting Budget page. A saved budget is a draft and controls nothing; submitting it turns the control on, and each checkpoint you enabled (material requests, purchase orders, booked expenses) then stops the document, posts it with a warning, or does nothing when the budget is exceeded, according to the action you chose. Distinct from the Finance Budget plan, which is a planning artifact. See Budgets & Spending Controls.

Budget plan

The Finance Budget page's plan: revenue and expense lines built from a client's prior actuals with explicit growth assumptions, edited line by line, and activated through approval. A planning artifact, not a spending control; activating a plan creates draft budgets, which gate nothing until they are submitted. See Budgets.

Budget Variance

The report that compares submitted budgets against actuals for a fiscal-year window, by cost center or by project, in monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly columns, with an optional cumulative view. Scoped by fiscal year rather than by a date range, and draft budgets are never compared. Opened from a budget's View variance link or from the report catalog. See Budgets & Spending Controls.

Budget vs. Actual

The account-level report of actuals against submitted budgets for the fiscal year of its as-of date. Activating a plan creates draft budgets, which count in this report once they are submitted on the Budgets & Spending Controls page. See Finance Workflows.

Ask Kraal

The panel beside the page. It answers first, names the page, and can take you there. The same panel is on every page. A draft it prepares waits in the Inbox. See Ask Kraal.

Certified chart

A chart whose points are the report's own cells, not a total or a change the chart computed. The chart is marked Certified. See Certified and derived charts.

Client

A business your firm keeps books for. Each client gets its own dedicated ERPNext instance and its own Max or Assisted setting, and — when it has more than one legal or reporting unit — multiple entities.

Client hub

Each client's own short settings page: who the client is, what needs attention, one card per area of their setup, editable client details, and offboarding at the bottom. Open it from Settings → Clients. See The Client Hub.

Client portal

The external site where your clients complete what you request from them — document asks, PBC items, and approvals — without needing a Kraal login. See External Client Portal.

Complete continuity set

One client-shared package plus a separate Accounting Continuity package for every configured legal entity, delivered together for convenience without blending sibling ledgers. See Prepare and Hand Off Portable Client Records.

Close period

One month of close work for one close unit. Boards and tiles that count periods say so explicitly, and a period's due and overdue judgments use its resolved close deadline. See Close Overview.

Close Sheet

The per-period page that tells the story of what is left inside a single close period — steps, blockers, and evidence. Reach it by clicking any row on Close Overview. See The Close Sheet.

Close unit

A client-entity pair working through close. A client with three entities has three close units per month; tiles that count units (rather than clients or periods) say so on the tile.

Close words

The words Kraal uses for a month-end close. The full list is on Close. Completed means the steps are done and the package can be built. It is not locked. Postings are still possible until the period is locked.

Home

The client's morning page. It shows what needs you, plus Cash, AR overdue, AP overdue, and Ran auto today. See Your first hour.

Older task view

This older task view is being retired. Signatures and approvals are in the Inbox. History is in Receipts. The address still opens. See Older task view.

Derived chart

A chart that computed at least one point from the report's cells, such as a total or a change. The chart is marked Derived and says it is not certified. See Certified and derived charts.

Dispatch

Automated monitoring, alerts, and action routing for accounting events, with rules and a mobile app for follow-ups in the field. See Dispatch.

Entity

A legal or reporting unit inside a client. Multi-entity clients choose entity scope in ChatIQ and accounting workspaces, and consolidate through multi-entity reporting. See Working with Multiple Entities.

Errors & Risk Review

The close stage where detection findings — duplicate entries and payments, round-amount manual entries, weekend and backdated postings, suspense-account activity, and statistical outliers — are dispositioned in the risk findings register. See Errors & Risk Review.

Guided Accounting Setup

The setup check you open when a client page says posting is held because setup changed. Its heading is Guided Accounting Setup. It is not the job list. The job list is Setup & configuration. See Setup & Configuration.

Inbox

The firm's mail. The tabs are Needs you, Waiting on client, and Done. Needs you splits into Signatures and Reviews. A period lock is signed under Signatures. See Inbox.

Held for you

A sweep outcome: Kraal prepared the work but deliberately stopped for a person. Held-for-you items land back in your approval or review lanes — nothing posts silently from a sweep. See Work List.

Judgment queue

Where work that needs a person waits. On Assisted, posting and contact wait for approval. Pause stops all new automatic work. See Autonomy & Safety and the Inbox.

Kraal assistant

Ask Kraal, the panel beside the page. It is the same panel on every page. A draft it prepares waits in the Inbox. See Ask Kraal.

Kraal sweep

A run Kraal still does on its own. You read the result in Receipts, and on Home under Ran auto today. The Inbox has no sweep button. See Kraal sweeps.

Mine (approvals)

An older name for the queue of what is waiting on you. Open the item in the Inbox. See Autonomy & Safety.

My Account

Your own account page, available to everyone: name (editable), email, role, organization, and join date, plus your security status, your assistant language preference, and the clients and teams you are on. See Team, Roles & Permissions.

PBC (provided by client)

Engagement tracking for the items a client must provide, requested and chased through the client portal. See PBC Engagement Tracking.

Reconciliation Hub

The period-end hub confirming that each material balance-sheet subject is supported, current, reviewed, and ready for close — evidence, differences, client follow-ups, and signoffs in one place. See Account Reconciliation.

Resolved close deadline

The single verdict Kraal uses for due and overdue judgments: the period's own due date if one was set, otherwise the client's package due day, otherwise the firm default (10th business day). Home and Close read the same verdict. See Close.

Sample workspace

Where enabled for your organization, a fully isolated space with synthetic data — a sample firm with three synthetic client files, or a sample company with three entities — for exploring Kraal without touching real books. Every screen states that nothing in your organization is read, changed, or contacted while you are there. See Getting Started.

Setup & configuration

The job list for every setup job on a client: accounting system, chart of accounts, banking, close template, entities, starting balances and first reports, and who owns setup. Reached from the client hub and revisitable at any time. This page used to be called Guided Setup. It is not the page headed Guided Accounting Setup, which is the check you open when posting is held. See Setup & Configuration.

Standing rule

How a kind of work Kraal has proven can become automatic for a client on Max. See How Kraal earns autonomy.

Supervised

An older name. Max is the setting where Kraal does the routine work within the rules your firm sets. See How Kraal earns autonomy and Autonomy & Safety.

Team & Access

The organization console for Owners and Administrators: user roster, invitations, role changes, per-person access detail, client teams, and security settings. See Team, Roles & Permissions.

Upload & process

The Books row for files. It accepts PDF, CSV, XLS, XLSX, OFX, QFX, TXT, and images (PNG, JPG, WEBP, and TIFF). Home's Upload statements button accepts PDF, CSV, OFX, QFX, XLS, and XLSX. See Upload & process.

Workspace

Your signed-in Kraal environment — the header, sidebar, and pages where your firm works. The selected client and entity scope controls which books you are looking at. "Workspace" also names purpose-built surfaces such as the ChatIQ workspace and the accounting workspaces. See Overview & Navigation.