I suspect the misconception might be that you think individual accounts must balance (Or think that what I'm saying). Transactions always balance, companies alw

I suspect the misconception might be that you think individual accounts must balance (Or think that what I'm saying). Transactions always balance, companies always balance. In double entry accounting you track where money came from to you. You are right in not having to worry where they get their money from. But you do have to track how/why it came to you. You will have an account in your accounting of 'income' (it's usually called 'Revenue'). If you have even the slightest complexity in your business, you will have many income accounts. Some businesses will definitely track at the level of detail where they have accounts for each customer, so they can see who purchased how much. Each transaction balances. Each line in a transaction is associated with an account. So if you have done 50 weekly transactions of: Revenue>Consulting $1,000CR Assets>Bank $1,000DB Each one balances. But in total you will have $50,000CR in Revenue>Consulting and $50,000DB in Assets>Bank, but your company will still balance. If you pay yourself $45,000 in salary from that, let's say in one go at the end of the year (to save me typing) you would have a transaction: Assets>Bank $45,000CR (it came from your bank account) Expenses>Salary $45,000DB (it went to your salary) So at the end, your accounts are: Assets>Bank $5,000DB Revenue>Consulting $50,000CR Expenses>Salary $45,000DB This still balances. Double accounting always balances companies and transactions. Historically it balances credits and debits. All I'm saying is it makes more sense to think of debits as negative and credits as positive, and all the math becomes much much simpler. Which is how accounting software is written.