Ledger
Also called general ledger, transaction ledger.
The record of every movement of money in a system, kept so that any balance can be explained entry by entry.
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What it is.
In accounting, the general ledger holds a company's accounts and every transaction posted to them. In software, a ledger is the part of a product that records money movements, such as deposits, payments, fees, refunds and payouts, as entries against accounts.
A good ledger is append-only. Entries are never edited or deleted; mistakes are fixed with new correcting entries. Balances are calculated from entries, not stored as a number someone can overwrite. Most use double entry bookkeeping.
Why it matters
Storing a balance column and updating it is the most common way fintech products lose track of money. A proper ledger makes every balance auditable, makes reconciliation possible, and survives retries and failures without double counting.
In a product build
In a wallet, marketplace or banking build, the ledger is designed before the payment features, because every other money feature writes to it.
Common mistakes.
- 01
Updating a balance field in place instead of writing entries.
- 02
Deleting or editing entries to fix mistakes.
- 03
Using floating point numbers for money instead of integers or fixed-point decimals.
Work it out with a tool.
Related terms.
- Double-entry bookkeepingRecording every transaction as equal debits and credits in at least two accounts, so the books always balance.
- ReconciliationChecking that two records of the same money agree, such as your ledger and the bank or provider's statement, and explaining every difference.
- Settlement (payments)The point when money for a payment actually moves into the receiver's account, after the payment was approved and cleared.
- Maker-checker (four-eyes principle)A control where one person makes a change and a different person must approve it before it takes effect.
