The vocabulary of a scaling back office sits between operations and accounting, which is exactly why it gets fuzzy. These are the terms Kitstak is built around, defined plainly, operator to operator.
ASN (Advance Ship Notice)
An electronic notice sent before a shipment arrives, listing what is in it. In retail supply chains it is often an EDI 856 document. Its accuracy matters because a mismatch between the ASN and the physical shipment is a common source of chargebacks. Accurate advance ship notices depend on inventory that reflects reality.
BOM (Bill of Materials)
The recipe for a finished good: the list of components and quantities consumed to build one unit. In a kitting or manufacturing operation, the BOM drives component consumption, so a production run can record exactly what was used and emit finished-good stock automatically.
Chargeback (Deduction)
A penalty a retailer or customer applies against an invoice for a compliance failure, such as a late delivery, a short shipment, or a documentation error. Disputing a chargeback successfully requires a clean, time-stamped record of what actually happened. Without one, the deduction stands.
Chart of Accounts
The structured list of every account a business uses to record financial activity: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses. It is the backbone of the general ledger and the foundation any real accounting system is built on.
Co-Pack (Contract Packaging)
Outsourced packaging and assembly, where a provider packages, kits, or finishes goods on behalf of a brand. Co-pack operations combine fulfillment with light manufacturing, which is why they need both inventory and BOM logic. See the Co-Pack and Ecom module.
Cost-to-Serve
The fully loaded cost of serving a specific customer, order, or line, including labor, materials, storage, and handling. It is the number that tells you whether an account is actually profitable at your current rate. Most operations cannot calculate it because their costs roll up to the warehouse, not the customer. Cost intelligence is the practice of allocating cost down to that level.
EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)
A standardized format for exchanging business documents, such as purchase orders and advance ship notices, between trading partners. Large retailers require it. The operational discipline behind EDI is more important than the format: the data is only as good as the system producing it.
Fill Rate
The percentage of ordered units actually delivered. A core measure of reliability, and a direct input to on-time-in-full performance. A fill rate calculated from drifting inventory numbers is a fill rate you cannot trust.
Generated Inventory
An approach where on-hand stock levels are derived from movement history rather than typed in by a person. Because the count is generated from receipts, shipments, and adjustments, it cannot drift away from what actually happened. This is the difference between inventory you trust because the database enforces it and inventory you hope is right.
Hash-Chained Audit Log
An append-only record where each entry includes a cryptographic hash of the previous one, so any tampering breaks the chain and is detectable. It makes the audit trail tamper-evident: you can prove a record was not altered after the fact. This is what turns a deduction dispute or a compliance audit from an argument into a presentation of evidence.
Journal Entry
The atomic record of a financial transaction in double-entry accounting, with balanced debits and credits. In a system where operations and accounting share a backbone, journal entries post automatically as you operate, so the books stay current instead of being rebuilt at month-end.
Kitting
Assembling individual items into a single ready-to-ship unit, such as a bundle or a subscription box. Kitting consumes components per a bill of materials and produces finished goods, which is why it sits between fulfillment and manufacturing. See the 3PL Operations module.
OTIF (On Time, In Full)
A retail performance standard measuring whether deliveries arrive within the required window and with the complete quantity. Missing it triggers penalties. OTIF is an inventory-accuracy problem before it is a logistics problem, because you cannot ship in full what your system cannot count correctly.
Period Close (Month-End Close)
The process of finalizing the books for an accounting period: reconciling accounts, posting adjustments, and locking the period. A healthy close lands in the first few business days. When it drifts toward the middle of the next month, the cause is usually that numbers were scattered and had to be rebuilt rather than written once as the business operated.
3PL (Third-Party Logistics)
A provider that handles warehousing, fulfillment, and related operations on behalf of other businesses. A 3PL serves many brand customers at once, so it needs customer-scoped data, whitelabel portals, and billing driven by operational events. See the 3PL software guide.
SKU (Stock Keeping Unit)
A unique identifier for a distinct sellable item, used to track inventory at the level a business actually manages it. Clean SKU discipline is the foundation of accurate inventory, fill rates, and cost allocation.
These terms describe one operation, not two. The reason a scaling back office feels fragmented is that operations and accounting usually live in separate systems. Kitstak runs them on one chassis. If a definition above maps to a problem you are living with, talk to the founder. Built to Ship.