A–Z Guide to Business Operations

A performance arrangement where a partner promotes a business's products using a tracked link and earns a commission on any resulting sale. Healthy programs depend on reliable attribution (so credit is never lost), transparent dashboards, and timely payouts.

A structured way for two software systems to talk to each other. In a business platform, APIs let external tools read or write data — for example pulling orders into an accounting system or pushing a product to a marketplace — without manual export/import steps.

A marketplace built for transactions between businesses rather than between a business and a consumer. B2B marketplaces typically add contract management, bulk pricing, escrow, and verified-business profiles to support higher-value, higher-trust trades.

The complete list of raw materials, components, and quantities needed to make a product. In an AI design-to-manufacture workflow, the BOM is generated from the design and drives cost estimation, sourcing, and production planning.

The flow a buyer follows to confirm an order and pay. A good checkout minimises fields, supports guest purchase, shows accepted methods early, and never surprises the buyer with extra fees at the last step. Every extra step is a place to lose a sale.

A percentage or fixed fee paid to an affiliate, reseller, or agent for a sale they influenced. Commissions are calculated automatically from tracked attribution and paid out on a defined schedule.

Software that centralises every interaction with a customer or prospect — contacts, deals, emails, calls, notes — so the whole relationship is visible in one place. A connected CRM feeds sales data into invoicing, marketing, and support automatically.

Selling to buyers in other countries. Done well it means showing local currency, local shipping options, local payment methods, and collecting any duties at checkout so the buyer's experience matches domestic shopping.

The human-readable web address customers type to reach a business — for example yourbrand.com. A domain is registered, not owned outright, and renewed before expiry; letting it lapse can take a website and email offline overnight.

A fulfilment model where the seller takes the order but a supplier ships directly to the buyer. It removes the need to hold stock but shifts the risk to supplier reliability and shipping transparency.

Software that unifies the core processes of a business — inventory, finance, HR, procurement, sales — into one system so every department works from the same data rather than disconnected spreadsheets.

A trusted third party that holds buyer funds until the seller meets agreed conditions (e.g. delivery confirmed). Escrow is common in B2B and high-value trades because it removes the 'pay first and hope' problem for both sides.

Everything that happens after an order is paid until the customer has it: picking, packing, shipping, tracking, and handling returns. A sale is only finished when the customer holds the order, not when the payment clears.

The service that securely takes a buyer's card details, authorises the charge, and settles funds to the seller's account. A good gateway supports the currencies and countries you sell to and handles subscriptions if you offer them.

An architecture that separates the storefront front-end from the commerce engine behind it. It lets a business reshape the customer experience quickly without touching inventory, pricing, or order logic in the back office.

The server space where a website lives and is served to visitors. Hosting ranges from affordable shared plans to dedicated resources for high traffic; what matters for a business is uptime, speed, and managed security updates.

The stock a business holds, tracked per location and per variant. Real-time inventory prevents overselling across channels and, combined with reorder thresholds, removes the guesswork that causes both stockouts and excess stock.

The checks a business runs to verify who its customers are, typically to meet regulatory and anti-fraud obligations. KYC underpins trust on marketplaces and in any service that handles payments or sensitive data.

The final leg of shipping — from a local hub to the customer's door. It is the most expensive and visible part of logistics; live tracking and proof of delivery protect both the buyer's experience and the seller against disputes.

Operating more than one location under one business. The healthy model keeps a single source of truth (one inventory, one chart of accounts) while letting each branch manager act within clear, role-based limits.

The ability to show prices and accept payment in a buyer's own currency while settling in the seller's base currency. Done well it lifts cross-border conversion without making accounting a mess of mixed currencies.

A software architecture where a single platform serves many independent organisations (tenants), each with isolated data, users, and branding. It is what makes white-label SaaS possible without standing up a separate install per client.

The process of getting a new user or client set up and productive. Automated onboarding — provisioning a tenant, assigning a subdomain, inviting the team — turns a multi-day setup into minutes.

The system used to record in-person sales, take payment, and update inventory in real time. A connected POS shares one inventory pool with online sales so a sale in-store instantly reduces stock shown online.

Automatically setting up a service after a purchase — registering a domain, creating a hosting account, issuing an SSL certificate, or spinning up a mailbox. Provisioning turns infrastructure from a manual chore into a product that can be sold.

The stock level at which a new purchase order should be triggered automatically. Threshold-based reordering replaces 'someone noticed the shelf was empty' with predictable, data-driven replenishment.

A partner who sells a platform's products under their own brand, often at their own price, and owns the customer relationship. Resellers carry more responsibility than affiliates and earn a larger cut in return.

A buyer sending an order back, tracked through a Return Merchandise Authorisation. A structured returns flow — reason, evidence, resolution (refund, replacement, credit) — protects margins and keeps disputes from escalating.

Rules that control which records a user can read or change, down to the individual row. RLS is what keeps one branch, tenant, or customer from seeing another's data inside a shared platform.

Software delivered over the internet on a subscription basis, rather than installed locally. SaaS shifts the burden of updates, hosting, and security to the provider and lets a business start small and scale on demand.

The unique identifier for a specific sellable variant of a product (size, colour, material). Accurate SKUs are the backbone of inventory, reorder logic, and multi-channel stock sync.

The digital certificate that encrypts the connection between a website and its visitors — producing the browser padlock. SSL is mandatory for trust and required by every modern payment processor.

An external business that provides the goods or materials a seller needs. Measuring supplier performance — on-time delivery, accuracy, dispute rate — is how a marketplace protects its own reputation through its vendors.

An isolated organisation inside a multi-tenant platform, with its own users, data, and configuration. In a white-label setup each client is a tenant, fully branded but sharing one underlying system.

The last part of a domain name — .com, .it, .store. Country TLDs (.it, .de) and newer descriptive TLDs (.store, .online) can reinforce a brand or a market while classic .com remains the default.

The percentage of time a service is available and working. A 99.9% uptime guarantee means roughly 43 minutes of downtime a month — the standard a business should expect from any platform it relies on.

A consumption tax applied at each stage of the supply chain, ultimately paid by the end buyer. For cross-border sales, showing the total including VAT at checkout avoids the surprise charges that drive returns.

An automated message sent from one system to another the moment something happens — an order is paid, a form is submitted. Webhooks let platforms react in real time instead of polling for changes.

Selling a platform under a partner's own brand, domain, and colours while the underlying technology is maintained by someone else. White-labeling lets an agency productise a service as recurring-revenue SaaS without writing code.

Software that controls the movement and storage of stock inside a warehouse — receiving, putaway, picking, packing, shipping — and tracks every movement so nothing is unaccounted for.