Founder's Glossary - makewavesconsultants.com

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AI agent: Software that uses artificial intelligence to carry out a multi-step task on its own, like drafting a quote or filing a report, instead of just answering a question. The useful kind is trained on your company's own procedures and data and keeps a person in the loop for approval. Without defined processes to follow, an agent just makes mistakes faster.
API (application programming interface): The connection point that lets one piece of software talk to another automatically, so data moves between systems without anyone re-typing it. When a vendor says they "have an API," ask whether it is included in your plan and whether the documentation is public. No API usually means your data moves by manual export, or not at all.
Audit trail: A record of who did what in a system, and when: who edited the invoice, who approved the discount, who deleted the customer. It is how you answer "what happened here?" with facts instead of memory. Good systems keep one automatically; ask to see it before you trust one.
Automation: Having software do a repetitive task the same way every time without a person touching it, like sending an invoice reminder or copying an order into a spreadsheet. Automation multiplies whatever process it is given, including a broken one. Define and document the process first, then automate it.

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Backup: A separate copy of your data, stored somewhere else, that you can actually restore from. A backup you have never tested restoring is a hope, not a backup. Cloud software vendors back up their systems for their benefit; that is not the same as you holding a copy of your own records.
BI (business intelligence): The general name for tools and reports that turn your raw business data into charts, dashboards, and answers. The tool matters less than the input: BI on messy, scattered data just makes confident-looking charts out of guesses. Structure the data first.

C

Cloud: Software and storage that run on the vendor's computers and reach you through the internet, instead of on machines in your building. You trade control for convenience: no servers to maintain, but your access and your data ride on the subscription. The cloud is fine; the question is what leaves with you when you cancel.
Company Wavelength MakeWaves term: The MakeWaves name for a company's weekly operational scorecard: a short set of numbers, each owned by one person, that shows whether the business is on track before the month-end books say so. It replaces gut feel with a five-minute read. If a number cannot be pulled without an hour of spreadsheet work, that is the first process to fix.
CRM (customer relationship management): Software that holds your customers, contacts, and the history of every call, quote, and job. Its real value is the accumulated history, which is exactly why leaving a CRM is painful. Before you commit to one, test whether that history exports completely.
CSV (comma-separated values): The plainest, most portable file format for data tables. Almost every system can read and write it, which makes it the common language of moving data between tools. When you ask a vendor for an export, CSV is the answer you want to hear.

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Dashboard: A screen that shows your key numbers at a glance, updated automatically, so checking the health of the business does not require building a report. A good dashboard answers a specific question for a specific role. A wall of 40 charts nobody reads is decoration.
Data ownership: Having your business records in structures you control, in formats other tools can read, with tested exports from every system that holds them. It does not mean avoiding cloud software. It means you could switch any single vendor without losing your history, which keeps the leverage in the relationship with you.
Data return clause: The part of a software contract that says what happens to your data when the relationship ends: what you get back, in what format, how quickly, and at what cost. Many contracts are silent on it, which favors the vendor. Ask for it in writing before you sign, while you still have negotiating power.
Database: An organized store of records with defined fields, built so information can be found, filtered, connected, and counted reliably. A shared spreadsheet can act as a small one; a shoebox of PDFs cannot. Most operational pain traces back to data that never made it into one.
Digitization: Turning paper and scattered files into structured digital records your systems can search and use. Scanning a form to PDF is only step one; the value arrives when the information on it lands in defined fields you own. Every sheet of paper your team handles twice is a candidate.

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ERP (enterprise resource planning): One large software system that tries to run most of the business in one place: orders, inventory, purchasing, accounting, sometimes more. Powerful, expensive, and famously painful to implement on top of undefined processes. Small businesses usually need defined workflows and connected tools before they need an ERP.
Export: Getting your data out of a system as a file you can open elsewhere. The word to listen for is "complete": many exports quietly leave out notes, attachments, custom fields, or history. Test the export while you are a happy customer, not on the day you leave.

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Integration: A connection that moves data between two systems automatically, so they stay in sync without re-typing. Real integrations run on their own; "integrates with" on a sales page sometimes means a manual import button. Ask what moves, in which direction, and how often.

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Knowledge base: The written, organized collection of how your business actually runs: procedures, standards, answers, and decisions, stored where the team can find them. When it is company-owned, in files and formats you control, it survives employee turnover and becomes the raw material for training people and, later, AI. It is the opposite of tribal knowledge.
KPI (key performance indicator): A number you have decided to steer by, like quotes sent per week, on-time delivery rate, or days from job done to invoice sent. The word "key" is the discipline: a handful of numbers with owners beats a spreadsheet of 50 nobody reads. If you cannot get a KPI without manual work, the process behind it is not defined yet.

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LLM (large language model): The technology behind modern AI assistants: software trained on enormous amounts of text so it can read, write, and answer in plain language. Out of the box it knows the internet, not your business. It becomes useful for operations when it is grounded in your own documented procedures and data.
Low-code: Tools that let you build apps, forms, and automations by configuring screens instead of writing software code. Good for getting a working tool quickly without hiring developers. The catch to check: whether what you build, and the data in it, can leave the platform if you outgrow it.

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Machine-readable: Data in a format software can process directly: fields, tables, and files like CSV, rather than information trapped in PDFs, photos, or paper. If a person has to read it and re-type it, it is not machine-readable. Most "we should automate this" wishes die on data that fails this test.
Migration: Moving your data from one system to another, like switching CRMs or accounting tools. The hard part is rarely the new system; it is getting complete, connected data out of the old one and mapped correctly into the new one. Every export you test today makes a future migration cheaper.
MRP (material requirements planning): Software or a process that works out what to buy or make, in what quantity, by when, based on demand and what is already on hand or on order. It is how manufacturers avoid both stockouts and a warehouse of cash sitting on shelves. It only works when inventory counts and lead times are accurate, which is a process problem before it is a software problem.

O

OCR (optical character recognition): Technology that reads text out of scanned documents and photos so it can become data instead of a picture. It is the bridge between a filing cabinet and a database, and it is how paper invoices, forms, and delivery notes become searchable records. Accuracy is good but not perfect, so keep a person checking anything that matters.
On-premise: Software that runs on computers in your building instead of in the vendor's cloud. You carry the maintenance and the backups, but access does not depend on a subscription staying paid. Mostly relevant today when internet reliability, control, or specific industry requirements demand it.
Operation Definition Score MakeWaves term: The score produced by the MakeWaves discovery questionnaire: 20 questions about how much of your operation is defined, documented, measured, and owned. It puts a number on the gap between the business running on memory and the business running on systems, and it maps which service actually fits next. The five-question Quick Check on this site is the pocket version.

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Portal: A logged-in area of a website where a specific group, like clients or staff, sees information meant only for them: project status, documents, invoices. A portal beats email attachments because there is one current version in one place. Ask who controls the access list and where the underlying files live.
Power Query: A tool built into Excel that pulls data from files and systems, cleans it up, and refreshes the result on demand, replacing hours of monthly copy-paste with a button. It is one of the most underused tools already sitting on most business computers. If your reports are assembled by hand, this is usually the practical first fix.
Process map: A simple diagram of how work moves through the business: the steps, who does each one, and where things hand off. Drawing one takes an hour and almost always surfaces steps nobody agreed on and handoffs where work falls through. It is the starting point for fixing a process, because you can't optimize what you haven't defined.

S

SaaS (software as a service): Software you subscribe to monthly or yearly and use through a browser, which is most modern business software. You are renting access, not buying the tool, and your data lives inside the rental. Budget for the subscription, but diligence the exit: format, completeness, and cost of getting your records out.
Single source of truth: The one agreed place where a piece of information lives and gets updated, so everyone stops maintaining private copies. When the customer's address changes, it changes in one system and everything else follows. Most reporting chaos is the same fact living in four places, three of them wrong.
SLA (service level agreement): The vendor's written commitment about service quality: how often the system will be up, how fast support responds, and what you are owed when they miss. If it is not written into the contract, it is a goal, not a promise. Ask for the SLA and read what the remedy actually is.
SOP (standard operating procedure): A short written procedure for one process: the steps, who owns it, the exceptions, and who has been trained on it. A good one fits on a page and lets a competent new hire do the job the company's way without shadowing anyone for a month. A library of them is how a business stops depending on any one person's memory.
SSO (single sign-on): One login that opens all of a company's systems, instead of a separate password for each. It is more secure and makes offboarding clean: shut off one account and a departing employee loses everything at once. Watch for vendors that lock SSO behind their most expensive plan.
Structured data: Information organized into defined fields and records, like a table with a column for each fact, instead of prose, PDFs, and photos. Structured data can be filtered, counted, connected, and fed to automation and AI; unstructured data has to be read by a person first. Structuring what you already have usually beats buying new software to collect more.

T

Tribal knowledge: Everything about how your business runs that lives only in people's heads: the pricing exceptions, the customer quirks, the way the machine actually gets fixed. It works until the person holding it is on vacation, or quits. Writing it down is the single highest-return operations project in most small businesses.

V

Vendor lock-in: Being stuck with a software vendor because leaving would cost too much in lost data, retraining, or rebuilt connections, and the vendor pricing accordingly. Lock-in is a business model, not an accident. The defense is boring and effective: tested exports, open formats, and contracts with a data return clause.

W

Workflow: The defined sequence a piece of work follows from start to finish: who does what, in what order, and what triggers the next step. Software vendors use the word for the automated version, but the workflow exists on paper first or it does not exist. Define it, document it, then let software carry it.

The words vendors use on you.

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