Last reviewed: 2026-07-30

Journal Entries

Purpose

Journal entries record the accounting effects of business activity.

Journal entries record accounting effects.
Entries must balance.
Posted entries are not silently mutated.
Corrections must use reversal or adjustment.
A reversal or adjustment is a separate posted journal entry with a new journal entry number and an immutable direct target reference.
A posted target entry retains status posted; correction-chain state is derived rather than written back to the target.
Entries must preserve source, date, period, account, amount, and explanation.
Posted entries must receive a human-visible journal entry number through the central posting path.
Journal entry numbers are company-scoped, assigned in increasing order for successful postings, and immutable after posting.
Journal entry numbers are presentation and lookup references; durable internal ids remain the canonical identity for persistence, audit, imports, correction, reversal, and recovery.

Users expect balanced entries for each posting.
Users must be able to recognize and search posted entries by a short journal entry number rather than by raw internal id.
Corrections must maintain a clear audit trail.

Validate entry balance before posting.
Assign journal entry numbers only inside the central posting path and persist them with the posted entry.
Prevent in-place mutation of posted records.
Preserve source references and explanations.
Persist posting mode and direct correction target on correction entries.
Persist target-line identity on full reversal lines.