Terminology

The terms we use consistently.

This page exists so that no two pages define the same term differently — and so that a system reading our website gets the same answer a person does.

JPS FinanceOS

A finance platform that sits on top of the systems already in place and connects transaction, effect and action while the transaction is still running.

The connection is the product

The value does not arise inside a module but in the fact that transaction, financial effect and decision hold together on one finance data model.

Systems of record

ERP, accounting, banks and operational systems. They keep their posting authority; FinanceOS does not post in their place.

Canonical finance data model

Eight finance objects — entity, bank account, counterparty, obligation, payment, receivable, document, period — on which processes are defined once instead of once per source system.

Provider adapter

The translation of one source onto the canonical model, at the edge. A change of source changes the adapter, not the finance process.

Cross-functional finance

Four capabilities that run across every module and are not products of their own: cases and exceptions, controls and authority, evidence, finance AI.

Finance modules

13 modules in three families — finance steering, finance operations, business performance. Each is a standalone entry point.

Financial case

An exception with an owner and a date, instead of an email without an addressee.

Authority

The permission checked at the moment of the decision — per entity, amount and transaction type. Where no rule applies unambiguously, a case is created instead of an approval.

Evidence

Origin, basis, decision and outcome stay retrievable together — on the transaction, not in a folder beside it.

Finance AI

AI across four authority levels: explain, recommend, prepare, act. The fourth applies only where an explicit, revocable authority decision has granted it.

Finance operations

The work between the systems: approvals, reconciliations, chasing, spreadsheets.

Maturity

An axis of its own with four states: verified in product, pilot or validation, in active development, defined capability. What is not marked, we do not claim.

Unknown is not zero

Where a source is missing, the field stays empty rather than green. That is why we do not offer DPO or the cash conversion cycle — neither has an authoritative COGS denominator.

If another page uses one of these terms differently, this page is the reference.