Accounting
The financial truth layer of your business — a governed, double-entry ledger where every financial event becomes a balanced, auditable entry.
What it is
Accounting is the core of the Finance capability in the Alliance Business Suite. It's a complete double-entry general ledger: every movement of value — a sale, a payment, a refund, a transfer — is recorded as a balanced journal entry, so your books stay accurate, auditable, and always in balance.
It's not a bolt-on accounting package. Because it shares the platform's one business model, one identity, and one security model, Accounting is the single source of financial truth the rest of the Suite posts into: Commerce records a sale, Payments settles it, and Accounting is where it becomes a permanent, balanced entry in your ledger.
What you can do
- Maintain your chart of accounts — organize assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses the way your business actually works.
- Organize your books — group accounts into ledgers and financial books, and keep separate books of record where you need them.
- Record journal entries — capture transactions as debits and credits that always balance.
- Post with confidence — posting seals an entry. Once it's posted, it's permanent and part of your official record.
- Correct by reversal — a mistake is never quietly erased. It's reversed with a compensating entry, so you keep a complete audit trail.
- Control your periods — open and close fiscal periods, so nothing posts into a closed month by accident.
- Work in any currency — record in the transaction currency, hold balances in each account's currency, and report in a common one.
- Run a trial balance — confirm your books balance, any time.
Key concepts
| Concept | What it is |
|---|---|
| Account | A line in your chart of accounts — an asset, liability, equity, income, or expense. |
| Ledger / Financial book | How accounts are grouped into a book of record. |
| Journal | A register that groups related entries, bound to a financial book. |
| Journal entry | A single balanced transaction — its debits equal its credits. |
| Posting line | One side of an entry: a debit or a credit to one account. |
| Fiscal period | An accounting period — a month, say — that can be open, closed, or locked. |
| Posting | Sealing a draft entry into the permanent record. |
| Reversal | The lawful way to correct a posted entry — a compensating entry, never an edit. |
| Trial balance | A report that proves total debits equal total credits across your accounts. |
The guarantees
Accounting is built to be trustworthy by design. A few rules hold on every single entry:
- Every entry balances. Debits always equal credits, so an unbalanced entry can't be posted.
- Posted is permanent. Once an entry is posted, it's immutable. You correct it by reversal, so the record of what happened is never rewritten — an audit-grade, append-only history.
- Closed periods stay closed. An entry can only post into an open fiscal period, so a prior period can't be disturbed once it's closed.
- Multi-currency is first-class. Each entry carries its transaction amount (the currency of the event), each account holds balances in its own currency, and it all rolls up to a common reporting currency. Rates are frozen at the moment of posting, so a posted entry never changes value later.
- Standards-ready. The mechanics follow international double-entry principles — normal balances, and foreign-currency treatment aligned with IAS 21 — so your books are prepared for standards-based reporting.
Using it in the Studio
You'll find Accounting in the Studio under Modules → Accounting:
- Accounts — your chart of accounts, with live balances.
- Journals & financial books — organize your books of record.
- Journal entries — create, post, and reverse entries.
- Fiscal periods — open and close your accounting periods.
- Reports → Trial balance — confirm your books balance.
- Posting executions — an operator view of automated postings, and any that need attention.
Works with the rest of the platform
Accounting is where financial events from across the Suite become permanent record:
- Billing — orders, invoices, and payments.
- Commerce & sales — a sale becomes a balanced entry, automatically.
- Payments — settlements post into the ledger as they're confirmed.
- Analytics & reporting — your posted ledger is the trusted source for financial reporting.
For developers
Accounting is fully available over the platform APIs — the AccountingService REST surface, plus GraphQL and the SDKs. See Web API Development and the API Reference.