Nothing Is Ever Edited
An invoice’s line items cannot be amended, and a mistake is corrected by
voiding and replacing. That is not a UI restriction — the records underneath
are append-only, and there is no operation that rewrites one.
Every Figure Is Derived
Balance due, reserve balances, the Overview report — none of these are stored
numbers that something keeps up to date. They are computed from the
underlying record of what happened, and can be recomputed from scratch at any
time.
Two Records, Not One
Every financial act in the app writes two things, in the same transaction.1
The Journal — what was done
One row saying which action occurred, with its details, who did it, and when.
“A payment of $5,000 was recorded against invoice INV-000412-001 on
12 March.” See The Journal.
2
The Ledger — how money moved between accounts
A balanced set of double-entry rows saying which accounts that action moved
money between, and by how much. See The
Ledger.
The Three Tiers
The read tier is the part worth understanding. The invoice row that backs the
invoice detail page — its status, its total, its amount
paid, its balance due — is a projection: a materialized summary of that
invoice’s journal, kept current as each action lands so that screens do not have
to replay history on every page load.
Because the read tier is derived, it is disposable. It can be discarded and
rebuilt from the journal and the ledger without losing anything. This is what
makes the truth tier worth keeping immutable: it is the only copy that matters.
What This Buys
Corrections Are Additions
Voiding an invoice does not remove its rows. It appends the exact opposite of
them, so the original posting and its reversal both remain visible. See
Corrections and Reversals.
A Real Audit Trail
Every figure traces to the action that caused it and the person who took it.
Nothing changes a number without leaving a row saying so.
Accounting Dates Are Free
Each ledger row carries the date the money is effective, independent of when
it was entered — so a correction can be backdated into the period it belongs
to, money can be recorded before it lands, and the books can be read as they
stood on any past date. See Effective
Date.
Integer Cents Throughout
Every amount is a whole number of cents. No figure in Financials is ever a
floating-point number, so totals never drift by a penny.
Where to Go Next
The Journal
The append-only log of actions, and how an invoice is reconstructed from it.
The Ledger
Balanced double-entry rows, signed cents, and the invariant every batch
satisfies.
The Chart of Accounts
The accounts your configuration mints, and the four sections they read into.
What Each Action Posts
Reserving, invoicing, paying, and voiding, traced through the accounts.