Introduction
As a payment operations startup, accounting principles are core to our work Accounting for Developers. We have seen them implemented at scale at some of the largest fintechs and marketplaces. Yet, accounting seems like an arcane topic when you’re starting out. This HackerNews thread, for example, is rather representative of the state of confusion around the topic.
Over the years, there have been many accounting for Developers guides published (two great ones are Martin Blais’ and Martin Kleppmans’), but we wanted to add our two cents to the discussion. In our experience, a concepts-first approach to explaining accounting comes in handy when you are designing systems that move or touch money to Modern Treasury.
In this ebook, we will cover the foundational accounting principles, then bring it all together by walking through how to build a Venmo clone.
Is this guide for you?
This guide is Accounting for Developers that work on applications that handle money in any way. You may work at a fintech company (the data you handle is money), or perhaps you are responsible for managing the fintech integrations in your startup (you handle data and money). We think that every engineer that builds or maintains such systems benefits from knowing the core principles of accounting.
Does accounting really matter in software development?
Double-entry systems are more reliable at tracking money than any other viable alternative. As a payments infrastructure company, we often get to see the architecture of some of the most successful software companies. One design is constant: they use double-entry accounting in their code. Some build their applications from the start with accounting concepts in mind, but in most cases, companies begin incorporating these concepts only after their original code starts causing problems.When software fails to track money properly, it does so in a number of common patterns. The most common failure mode is software accidentally creating or destroying records of funds. This leads to all sorts of inconsistencies.
To read full download the whitepaper:
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