Journal Entry

Journal entries are building blocks of accounting system. Each journal entry shows a financial activity. Journal entries are usually just called "entry". An entry has two or more lines, which are also called "articles" in accounting terminology. Each entry line represent a debit or credit on a single account. Entries must be balanced, meaning that the total amount of credits and debits of its lines must be equal.

Entries may contain many lines and represent complex transactions, but those transaction will be mapped to a series of low level "Transfer" objects. Each transfer moves a specific amount from a single account to one other account.

Entry States

An entry may start in a "Draft" state, meaning that it is still not completely entered. Note that this does not mean that it is a ongoing financial transaction. Draft just indicates that the details of the entry are not entered into the system yet. Draft state is more useful in UI when the accountant fills the details of the entry in several steps, and is not recommended to be used by API clients unless really necessary.

A complete entry will be in the "Saved" state. A saved entry shows up in financial reports of the system. Transfer objects are also created when an entry enters saved state. You can create entries directly in the saved state, or save a draft entry.

When an entry is really finalized, it can be "Posted". Posted entries are final and immutable financial and legal records of system and cannot be edited. You can either choose to always create entries as posted, or create entries in saved state and use a manual review process for posting them. When an entry is posted, if TigerBeetle integration is enabled, its transfers are posted to TigerBeetle database and made permanent.