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I wrote a simple double entry bookkeeping program for myself, and I wanted to use as accurate terminology as possible. My native language is Swedish, and we hav
by mongol 4y ago
I wrote a simple double entry bookkeeping program for myself, and I wanted to use as accurate terminology as possible. My native language is Swedish, and we have a word for the task of categorizing statements into accounts. Basically, when you look at a recipt and tell "this is for inventory, then I will use account X." In the past, you then wrote that down with a pen in a kind of inverted-T table that you had stamped on the receipt.
The Swedish word for that activity is "kontera", loosely translated to "accounting". But in English that is the word for the entire activity of keeping books up to date. Is there a word for the specialized task of identifying the accounts?
Edit: Wikipedia has articles for this word in Swedish, Danish and German. But no other languages. Puzzling.
- tophi 4y agoClassify I think
- fifticon 4y agoit's not wrong, but kontera is the very specific act of assigning a transaction to the proper account, with none of the general meaning of classify. Kontera sort of implies the act and transaction, the "commit".
- mongol 4y agoYes, I probably explained it a little too simplistic. Describing it as the commit is quite accurate I think. In my program I came up with the verb "book" for this, as book a transaction, but I have no idea if it is correct in the English-speaking world.
- tepitoperrito 4y agomaybe record? or enter? I'm not sure what I'd use and I'm a native english speaker : )
- mongol 4y agoThey are probably fine but in my ears they lack the precision that the Swedish word has.
- mellavora 4y agoI'm native English speaker, learned Swedish while living there for 7 years. Yes, "book" is the right translation. Though "book" can mean many other things in English. To book a transaction means "to enter the transaction in the bookkeeping system", hopefully in the right account.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- yobbo 4y agoCan sometimes be "post" transaction, and sometimes "book". It's kontieren in German, and probably from latin "conto".