You just look silly trying to build financial software without understanding and implementing double-entry or ledgers. You have to know when to employ debit and credit nomenclature and be able to easily explain the reactions in the system...or you look silly. Sort of like when accountants start talking about databases and APIs without proper training.
I have had to train developers on the simple concept of a ledger, which totally baffled them. It is event sourcing. You write, never update. If you want to offset a previous transaction you just record a new one. Want to know the account balance, just add up every amount within the range of entries you care about.
Once they grasped that they were wanting to use the terms debit and credit in that context. Not cool. If you are tracking single accounts you only need negative and positive amounts. If the account/ledger is not offsetting another debit/credit there is no need to introduce that concept and complicate things. If you do, the finance team is going to wonder what other accounts you are offsetting. If the answer is none, brows wrinkle and confusion sets in.
And ffs don't ever send them a spreadsheet or report with currency symbols in it. Major peave.
Accountants have been using event sourcing (immutable ledgers) for hundreds of years. Powerful.
Every complex finance problem I have run into in software dev was easily and elegantly solved with immutable records.
I have had to train developers on the simple concept of a ledger, which totally baffled them. It is event sourcing. You write, never update. If you want to offset a previous transaction you just record a new one. Want to know the account balance, just add up every amount within the range of entries you care about.
Once they grasped that they were wanting to use the terms debit and credit in that context. Not cool. If you are tracking single accounts you only need negative and positive amounts. If the account/ledger is not offsetting another debit/credit there is no need to introduce that concept and complicate things. If you do, the finance team is going to wonder what other accounts you are offsetting. If the answer is none, brows wrinkle and confusion sets in.
And ffs don't ever send them a spreadsheet or report with currency symbols in it. Major peave.
Accountants have been using event sourcing (immutable ledgers) for hundreds of years. Powerful.
Every complex finance problem I have run into in software dev was easily and elegantly solved with immutable records.