> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.go.aiinsurance.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

> What Financials records underneath the invoices you see

Everything in [Concepts](/financials/overview) describes Financials as a user
works it: [invoices](/financials/invoices) are created, payments recorded,
[reserves](/financials/reserves) updated, mistakes voided. This section describes
what the app writes down when you do those things.

You do not need any of it to use Financials. It is here because two properties
of the underlying model leak into the product in ways that are easier to trust
once you know why they hold:

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Nothing Is Ever Edited" icon="lock">
    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.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Every Figure Is Derived" icon="calculator">
    Balance due, reserve balances, the [Overview report](/financials/pages/event-financials-page#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.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Two Records, Not One

Every financial act in the app writes **two** things, in the same transaction.

<Steps>
  <Step title="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](/financials/accounting-model/journal).
  </Step>

  <Step title="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](/financials/accounting-model/ledger).
  </Step>
</Steps>

The journal is the record of intent; the ledger is the record of effect. They are
written together and never diverge, because the ledger rows are always stamped
with the journal row that produced them.

## The Three Tiers

| Tier              | Holds                                                                                                      | Mutability                                    |
| ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| **Configuration** | Invoice Types, Line Item Types, and the [accounts](/financials/accounting-model/accounts) minted from them | Editable, with parts write-once               |
| **Truth**         | The journal and the ledger                                                                                 | **Append-only.** Never updated, never deleted |
| **Read**          | Invoices, payments, and per-entity balances — what every screen and report reads                           | Rebuildable cache                             |

The read tier is the part worth understanding. The [invoice row that backs the
invoice detail page](/financials/invoices) — 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.

<Info>
  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.
</Info>

## What This Buys

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Corrections Are Additions" icon="rotate-left">
    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](/financials/accounting-model/postings#corrections-are-reversals).
  </Card>

  <Card title="A Real Audit Trail" icon="clipboard-list">
    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.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Accounting Dates Are Free" icon="calendar">
    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](/financials/accounting-model/ledger#effective-date-is-not-entry-date).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Integer Cents Throughout" icon="coins">
    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.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Where to Go Next

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="The Journal" icon="book" href="/financials/accounting-model/journal">
    The append-only log of actions, and how an invoice is reconstructed from it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="The Ledger" icon="scale-balanced" href="/financials/accounting-model/ledger">
    Balanced double-entry rows, signed cents, and the invariant every batch
    satisfies.
  </Card>

  <Card title="The Chart of Accounts" icon="sitemap" href="/financials/accounting-model/accounts">
    The accounts your configuration mints, and the four sections they read into.
  </Card>

  <Card title="What Each Action Posts" icon="right-left" href="/financials/accounting-model/postings">
    Reserving, invoicing, paying, and voiding, traced through the accounts.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>