Glossary: AI, MCP and Exact Online

Connecting an accounting package to an AI assistant brings together two fields that each carry their own jargon. Below are the terms you will meet on this site and inside your Exact Online administration, each explained in a few sentences.

Administration (division)

An administration is a separate set of books in Exact Online, usually one per legal entity. In the API this is called a division and identified by a division number. Ledger Botje works per administration; how many you may connect depends on your plan.

AI agent

An AI agent is an AI assistant that does not only answer but also carries out steps on its own towards a goal, for example looking up data, doing a calculation and then creating an order. How far an agent may go is set by the rights you grant it.

API

An API is a defined way for two systems to exchange data. Exact Online offers a REST API; Ledger Botje uses it to read and update your administration, and translates it into MCP tools an AI assistant understands.

Audit file (XAF)

An audit file is a standardised export of a complete financial administration over a period. In the Netherlands XAF (XML Auditfile Financieel) is the common format. Accountants and the tax authority use it to read a set of books without access to the package itself.

Batch number

A batch number identifies a production lot of an item, so you can trace afterwards which lot went to which customer. It is mandatory in sectors with recall obligations, such as food and pharmaceuticals.

Bill of materials (BOM)

A bill of materials describes which components and quantities make up a finished product. When a production order is released, the BOM determines which material has to be issued.

Chart of accounts

A chart of accounts is the ordered list of all ledger accounts an administration uses, with their numbers and their classification as balance sheet or profit and loss. It determines how finely you can report later on.

E-invoicing

E-invoicing means sending an invoice as a structured data file the receiving system can read directly, rather than as a PDF or on paper. It removes manual re-keying and makes automatic checks on amounts and VAT possible.

ERP

An ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system keeps a company's core processes in one coherent administration: purchasing, sales, stock, manufacturing and finance. Exact Online is an ERP aimed at small and medium-sized businesses.

General ledger

The general ledger is the complete set of accounts on which every financial movement of a business is recorded. Each entry touches at least two ledger accounts, which is what keeps debit and credit in balance.

Hallucination

A hallucination is an answer an AI model states convincingly but which is factually wrong. With an integration that fetches real data the risk is smaller, because the model bases its answer on retrieved records rather than on what it believes it remembers. Still, always verify amounts.

MCP (Model Context Protocol)

MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants connect to external systems in a structured way. Instead of every AI vendor building its own integration, an MCP server exposes a fixed set of tools that any supporting assistant can call. Ledger Botje is such an MCP server for Exact Online.

In-depth article about MCP →

MCP prompt

An MCP prompt is a predefined template the MCP server offers to kick off a common task, for example a month-end close or a stock check. Unlike a tool, a prompt performs nothing: it gives the assistant a starting point with the right questions in the right order.

MCP tool

An MCP tool is a single action an AI assistant can perform through the MCP server, such as searching a sales order or booking a goods receipt. Ledger Botje offers 292: 122 read-only and 170 write. Names follow the pattern topic_entity_action.

All MCP tools →

OAuth 2.1

OAuth 2.1 is the authorisation standard that lets you grant an external application access to your account without sharing your password. You sign in at Exact Online, grant permission there, and the application receives a token you can revoke at any time.

How Ledger Botje applies this →

Order-to-cash

Order-to-cash is the process chain from incoming sales order to received payment: record the order, deliver, invoice and reconcile the payment. Every step is a place where an AI integration can take manual work away.

Peppol

Peppol is a European network for exchanging e-invoices and procurement documents between businesses and governments. Participants have a Peppol ID and send through a certified access point, so sender and receiver need no bilateral arrangement.

PKCE

PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange) is an extension to OAuth that stops an intercepted authorization code from being usable by an attacker. The client sends a secret in the first step and only reveals it when redeeming the code. Ledger Botje uses OAuth 2.1 with PKCE.

Procure-to-stock

Procure-to-stock is the chain from purchasing need to available stock: place the purchase order, receive the goods, book them to a location and match the purchase invoice. A mismatch between order, receipt and invoice is where manual work appears.

Prompt injection

Prompt injection is an attack in which someone hides instructions in text an AI assistant reads, for example in an invoice description, hoping the model will follow them. The defence lies in limiting what the assistant is allowed to do at all.

How we limit this →

RAG

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) is an approach in which an AI model first retrieves relevant information from an external source and bases its answer on that. An MCP integration is a form of this: the assistant pulls the facts from your administration before answering.

Rate limit

A rate limit is a ceiling on how many requests you may make within a period. Exact Online applies a daily limit per administration; Ledger Botje additionally has a monthly number of AI requests per plan.

RGS (Dutch reference chart of accounts)

RGS is a Dutch standard classification for ledger accounts, designed to make the books of different companies comparable and machine-readable. By mapping your own accounts to RGS codes, reports and tax filings can largely be assembled automatically.

Serial number

A serial number identifies an individual unit of an item, as opposed to a batch number which covers a whole lot. It is used for warranty, maintenance history and tracking capital goods.

Streamable HTTP

Streamable HTTP is the transport layer MCP uses to exchange messages between the AI assistant and the server. The connection stays open for the duration of the conversation so answers can arrive incrementally. It succeeds the earlier SSE variant of the protocol.

Token

A token is the unit in which language models process text, roughly a word fragment. Separately, token in the OAuth sense means something else: a key that grants access to an account. Both meanings come up around AI integrations.

UBL

UBL (Universal Business Language) is the XML format e-invoices are usually written in. It fixes which fields an invoice contains and what they are called, so every accounting package interprets the same invoice the same way.

ViDA

ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age) is a European package of measures modernising VAT rules, including mandatory e-invoicing and digital reporting for cross-border transactions. Roll-out is phased and the exact dates differ per member state.

Work order

A work order, also called a production order, is the instruction to produce a given quantity of an item. It references a bill of materials for the material and a routing for the operations and work centers.

Manage production orders with AI →

XBRL

XBRL is an XML format for exchanging financial reports in which every amount carries a fixed meaning from a taxonomy. In the Netherlands, annual accounts and tax returns are filed in XBRL through SBR.

Last updated: 25 July 2026