Square

Software development glossary

Clear definitions of the terms that come up when you scope and source software — each linked to where we go deeper.

Nearshore software development
Outsourcing software work to a nearby country that shares your working hours and is a short flight away — so collaboration feels local. Albania is nearshore to Italy and the EU: same Central European timezone, 1–2 hour flight. Learn more →
Staff augmentation
Adding external senior engineers directly to your in-house team — your tools, your process, your management — to scale capacity without hiring. You keep ownership; we provide the people. Learn more →
Dedicated team
A self-managing team that owns a product or workstream end to end on your behalf, led by us. Best when you want outcomes and a single accountable partner rather than to manage individuals. Learn more →
MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
The smallest version of a product that delivers real value and validates the idea with users. We typically ship an MVP in 8–16 weeks, then grow it into a full production system (4–9 months). Learn more →
Software house
A company that designs, builds and maintains software products end to end, rather than just renting out developers by the hour. Square is a software house headquartered in Tirana, Albania. Learn more →
Custom vs off-the-shelf software
Off-the-shelf software is pre-built and licensed; custom software is built around your exact process and owned by you. Custom wins when your workflow is a differentiator or no product fits. Learn more →
Fiscalization (Fiskalizimi)
Albania’s real-time fiscal reporting requirement: invoices are transmitted to the tax authority (NIVF/NSLF via the AKSHI platform) at the moment they’re issued. Software must integrate with it to be compliant. Learn more →
Fiscalization API
The programmatic interface your software calls to report invoices to a country’s tax platform in real time — authentication with a fiscal certificate, invoice registration, and the returned fiscal identifiers. Each country has its own (Albania’s central platform, Italy’s SdI, Greece’s myDATA). Learn more →
NIVF (Unique Invoice Identification Number)
The unique identifier the Albanian tax platform returns when an invoice is successfully fiscalized in real time. It proves the invoice was registered with the authorities and appears on every compliant invoice, usually inside the QR code. Learn more →
NSLF (Invoice Issuer Security Number)
A security code the invoicing software generates with the taxpayer’s electronic certificate before an Albanian invoice is transmitted. It cryptographically identifies who issued the invoice and, together with the NIVF, makes each fiscalized invoice verifiable. Learn more →
E-invoicing (electronic invoicing)
Issuing, transmitting and receiving invoices as structured digital documents that tax authorities and business systems can process automatically — not a PDF of a paper invoice. Many countries now clear e-invoices through a government platform before they are valid. Learn more →
SdI (Sistema di Interscambio)
Italy’s official invoice-exchange system: every domestic electronic invoice (FatturaPA XML) must pass through SdI, which validates it and delivers it to the recipient. Mandatory for essentially all Italian invoicing — software selling into Italy integrates with it. Learn more →
myDATA (Greece)
Greece’s digital bookkeeping and e-invoicing platform, run by the tax authority (AADE): businesses report invoices and accounting records electronically, with e-invoicing mandates phasing in through 2026. Software serving Greek businesses reports to it via API. Learn more →
KSeF (Poland)
Krajowy System e-Faktur — Poland’s national e-invoicing system: structured invoices are cleared through the central platform, with the mandatory rollout starting February 2026. The Polish counterpart of Italy’s SdI or Albania’s fiscalization platform. Learn more →
e-Faktura (Serbia / North Macedonia)
The name both Serbia and North Macedonia use for their national e-invoicing platforms: Serbia’s has been mandatory for B2B since 2022; North Macedonia’s rolls out from 2026. Businesses in those markets need software that issues invoices through the platform. Learn more →
ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age)
The EU package, adopted in March 2025, that makes digital reporting and e-invoicing mandatory for cross-border B2B transactions from July 2030, with national real-time systems aligning to the EU standard by 2035. It is the direction of travel for every EU member and candidate country. Learn more →
CET overlap
Working in the same Central European Time zone as your client, so the whole working day overlaps — questions get same-day answers instead of an overnight round-trip. Albania runs on CET. Learn more →
LLM (Large Language Model)
An AI model trained on vast amounts of text that predicts and generates language — the engine behind chatbots, copilots and AI assistants. On its own it only knows what it was trained on; you connect it to your data and tools to make it useful for your business. Learn more →
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
A technique that lets an LLM answer from your own documents and data: relevant content is retrieved at query time and fed to the model, so replies are grounded in your facts instead of guessed. This is how you build an AI that knows your products, policies and prices. Learn more →
AI agent
An AI system that doesn’t just answer — it takes actions: it plans steps, calls tools and APIs, and works toward a goal with minimal hand-holding. Think of it as software that can reason through a task (book, update, look up, decide) rather than just generate text. Learn more →
Fine-tuning
Further training a base AI model on your own examples so it adopts your tone, format or domain knowledge. Useful when prompting and RAG aren’t enough and you need consistent, specialised behaviour baked into the model. Learn more →
Vector database
A database that stores text (and other data) as numeric “embeddings” so it can find items by meaning, not just exact keywords. It’s the search layer that powers RAG — retrieving the passages most relevant to a question. Learn more →
MCP (Model Context Protocol)
An open standard for connecting AI models to external tools, data and systems through a common interface — so an assistant can securely read a database, call an API or open a file without bespoke glue code for each one. It’s becoming the standard plug for wiring AI into real software. Learn more →
Prompt engineering
The craft of writing clear instructions, examples and context so an AI model returns the result you want — reliably and in the right format. It’s the cheapest, fastest lever for quality before you reach for fine-tuning. Learn more →
SaaS (Software as a Service)
Software delivered over the internet on a subscription, hosted and maintained by the provider — no installs, updates handled for you. Most modern business tools are SaaS; we also build custom SaaS products for companies to sell. Learn more →
ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
A system that unifies a company’s core operations — finance, inventory, purchasing, HR, production — in one place so data flows across departments instead of living in silos. We build and integrate custom ERP tailored to how you actually work. Learn more →
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Software for tracking leads, customers and every interaction with them — sales, support, follow-ups — so nothing falls through the cracks. We build custom CRMs when off-the-shelf tools don’t match your sales process. Learn more →