Issuer = Problem Maker??

One time at work, I got a translation question from a colleague. Hey, what is 起票者 [kihyosya] in English? I am working in an ERP company and building a kind of accounting software. The term he mentioned is used for journaling system, roughly means as person who create/fill out/record/prepare a journal entry.

If you open Google Translate for 起票者 it will translate to Slip issuance person. So, issuer for short…

So I said to them, isn’t it issuer?

He (and his other colleague) were staring at me in disbelieve. Issuer? People who make problems??

I was rolling my eyes.

Here is the deal. The word issue is also commonly used in Japanese, which means a problem. We are also using redmine internally for ticketing system which uses the word issue in its URL. If anything is managed in redmine, it is problem, only problems.

It is quite similar in Indonesian language, right? We have the word isu, and the meaning is near the word problem, though not exactly. In Indonesian isu means gossip or rumor. Interestingly, this nuance is not present from the English word issue.

To be clear, check the Cambridge Dictionary for the meaning of issue in English. There are so many, but I will highlight some here.

a subject or problem that people are thinking and talking about

I think this is the nuance which presents in Japanese. It is also similar to the one in Indonesian but we use it strictly for rumor which is not the case here.

a group or series, or one of a group or series, of things that are supplied, made available, or printed at the same time

This meaning above and below is the one that I provide to them.

to produce or provide something official

Journal is a record of financial transactions, which is recorded regularly and used officially although only for internal bookkeeping. So I think issuer is quite accurate.

Well, I am not familiar with the terms of accounting domain so I may be wrong. Maybe it is booker or something. Or the book user, one that they ultimately use.

> Note: the correct term probably a bookkeeper. CMIIW.