1 min lesson
Immutable trail from source event to journal entry
Take "Immutable trail from source event to journal entry" step by step, then finish with the result that proves it worked.
Step 1 of 2
Immutable trail from source event to journal entrythe spine of an auditable system
An auditor should be able to take any number in the financials and walk it back to the event that caused it. A booked revenue dollar traces to a journal entry, which traces to a rev-rec schedule, which traces to a contract and a metered usage event with an immutable id.
- 1Source event. A usage record or contract change lands with a unique, immutable id and timestamp.
- 2Rated / recognized. Logic turns it into a billing line and a rev-rec schedule, carrying the source id forward.
- 3Posted. A journal entry references the schedule and the source id; the ledger is append-only, corrections are new entries.
- 4Reportable. Any reported figure can be drilled back through the chain to the originating event.
Financial ledgers append, they don't overwrite. A mistake is corrected with a reversing and a new entry, both preserved, never an edit-in-place. The same goes for the audit log of agent and automation actions. "What was the state before this change and who authorized it" must always have an answer, which is impossible if records can be silently mutated.