Ledgers and money

A ledger keeps a running tally as entries, the way a bank statement keeps your balance. Each entry records one movement, and a balance is the sum of the entries so far. Entries are only ever added, so the past stays exactly as it was.

Two kinds of ledger

Kind	What it counts	Example
Financial	Money, in double entry, kept in books	The general ledger, in Finance
Statistical	Records by status: how many, how much, how long	Deals by status; tasks by status

Both work the same way, so every number in Continual, from revenue to open tasks, is a sum of entries, and opens to the records behind it. Accountants will know statistical ledgers as statistical key figures: counts kept beside the books, never mixed into them.

Financial ledgers: double entry, plainly

Every movement of money is recorded twice: where it went, and where it came from. One side is a debit and the other a credit, and they are always equal. So every entry balances, and so does the whole ledger.

Example: invoice, then payment

You issue Northstar an invoice for $1,000, and Northstar pays it a month later.

When	Account	Debit	Credit	What it says
You issue the invoice	Accounts receivable	$1,000		Northstar owes you $1,000
	Revenue		$1,000	You earned $1,000
Northstar pays	Bank	$1,000		You have $1,000 more in cash
	Accounts receivable		$1,000	Northstar no longer owes it

Issuing the invoice posts the first two lines, and receiving the payment posts the next two. Nobody types these entries: each Document posts its own, in the same moment it is finalized. See Documents.

The receivable stays an open item until a payment settles it, so Continual always knows what each customer still owes, invoice by invoice.

Ledger accounts

Each line names a ledger account, and your chart of accounts lists them all. Every ledger account is one of five types:

Type	What it tracks	Grows with a	Examples
Asset	What the business owns	Debit	Bank, accounts receivable
Liability	What it owes others	Credit	Accounts payable, sales tax due
Equity	What belongs to its owners	Credit	Owner's capital
Revenue	What it earns	Credit	Sales, services
Expense	What it spends	Debit	Rent, software

Some accounts are control accounts, such as accounts receivable. They hold what customers owe in total. Only invoices and payments post to them, each naming its customer, and a hand-entered journal entry never can. So the total always agrees with the customers behind it.

Customer and vendor accounts

A customer account is your relationship with one customer in Finance: which receivable account their invoices post to, and their defaults. A vendor account is the same for a supplier. Both name a company, so a customer who is also a vendor is one company with two accounts.

Books

A book keeps the ledger for one legal entity, in that entity's currency. A business with a US and a UK entity keeps two books. Each entry balances within its own book.

A book has a lock date. Once you close a period, entries dated on or before the lock date are refused, so a late correction posts in the open period, as auditors expect.

Foreign currency

An invoice in euros posts in the book's currency too, converted at the rate on or before its date. Continual keeps both amounts. If a payment arrives when the rate has moved, the difference posts as a realized gain or loss. A rounding difference posts to the book's rounding account.

Statements

Finance reads three statements straight from the general ledger:

Statement	What it shows
Trial balance	Every account's balance; debits and credits are equal
Income statement	Revenue less expenses, for a period
Balance sheet	Assets, liabilities, and equity, at a date

Nobody edits a balance by hand. To correct one, you post a journal entry, or void or reverse the Document that posted it. Coming: a void nets out on the original date, while the period is open; a reversal posts on a date you choose, such as the first open day after a closed period.

Coming: bills from vendors, and bank reconciliation.

Statistical ledgers: every status, counted

Every record type with a status keeps a statistical ledger, with no setup. Each time a record changes status, its ledger posts the move: one less in the old status, one more in the new.

From those entries you can read, for any past date:

• How many are in each status, such as open tasks last Monday.
• How many arrived in a status, such as deals won this month.
• How long each stayed, such as how long tasks spend in progress.
• How old the records still there are, such as the age of open tasks.

Each count also follows the record's other details, such as its owner, customer, or project. A deal carries its amount too, so the deal ledger also counts the pipeline in money. Statistical ledgers never balance and never touch the books.

Two times on every entry

Every entry keeps two times, as accounting keeps a document date and a posting date:

• When it counts: the moment the movement applies, which decides its period.
• When it was recorded: the moment Continual learned it.

So you can ask "how many tickets were open on October 5", and also "what did we know about October 5 on October 6", before a late correction arrived.

Who sees which entries

You see only the entries you may read. Finance's books show only to people with a Finance role. A statistical ledger counts only the records you can see, so a private project's tasks count for its members alone.