A balanced set of debits and credits with its accounting period, narrative, supporting documentation, approval trail and ERP posting confirmation.
Volume
Thousands per tenant per period
Retention
Audit period
Entity attributes14
Accounting date and system timestamp must be separate fields. The period an entry belongs to cannot be derived from when it was recorded.
Exact decimal arithmetic end to end — database column, ORM mapping, API serialisation and client. Floating point anywhere in the chain is disqualifying.
narrative
External posting must record confirmed outcome, never assumed outcome. The platform must distinguish sent from posted.
External posting must record confirmed outcome, never assumed outcome. The platform must distinguish sent from posted.
reverses_entry_id / reversed_by_entry_id
Journal entry generation and posting must be idempotent, with deduplication keyed on the originating match or reconciliation record.
Machine-generated narrative must carry provenance metadata and require human approval before it becomes part of the record.
journal_entry_id
Every transactional row must carry a tenant identifier from the outset, even in a single-tenant deployment.
Approval routing rules must be expressible as tenant configuration across value bands, entity, account type and entry type.
Exact decimal arithmetic end to end — database column, ORM mapping, API serialisation and client. Floating point anywhere in the chain is disqualifying.