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Accounting rules in Sweden does not allow erasure of history. That is too easy to do with plain text. This can work for personal accounting but not for cases wh
by mongol 6y ago
Accounting rules in Sweden does not allow erasure of history. That is too easy to do with plain text. This can work for personal accounting but not for cases where it is legally required.
- azornathogron 6y agoI suspect most people who use this type of tool keep their accounts files in a version control system. (That's what I do)
- londons_explore 6y agoMaking it technically impossible to erase history isn't something any accounting software today does. You could get close to it by publishing data in a blockchain, but nobody does... So, given that, the requirement must simply be to make erasing history too hard to do accidentally. A simple git commit history would suffice for that. Or just a check when you save the file to see if any lines have been removed. It doesn't seem necessary anyway though - If everyone keeps a record of every incoming and outgoing transaction, then if I alter a transaction retrospectively, it will no longer match the counterparties records, and my modification will be detected.
- sithlord 6y agoA lot of software do make it very difficult, if not impossible for a regular accountant to erase history. To the point, when I was an accountant, if I made a simple error in keying in something, you would have to reverse it out, and then fix it, all of which would show up on the general ledger. For example, say we received cash 5,500 for our software services that we have yet to complete, we would need to debit cash and credit some Accounts Receivable. lets say I make a mistake: Cash.....5,050 Accounts Receivable..........5,050 I would either need to do another journal entry for 450 dollars to both accounts, or reverse out them and do it again, of which it would still be visible
- mongol 6y agoIt cannot be made technically impossible of course. But it can be made impossible using the regular user interface.
- welterde 6y agoSo it really depends on what one consider as the regular user interface. One could easily write a small (web or desktop) application that takes some plain text, appends it to a ledger file and creates a git commit. As well as only providing a read-only view to the ledger.
- diegocg 6y agoSimply managing the text files with git would solve that retirement
- mongol 6y agoNo it wouldn't. It would provide history, but it would not prevent you from changing a transaction that was booked the previous month.
- veeti 6y agoSo don't change it? The audit trail is there.
- mongol 6y agoDepends on if authorities agree with that point of view. Accounting here needs to follow what can be translated as "Generally accepted accounting principles". If you do bookkeeping with pen and paper, you cannot erase a past mistake. You need to correct it with a new transaction. Basically, an append-only system is needed.
- veeti 6y agoI don't really see how this is practically different from any other "accountant approved" software. Even if the user interface is "append only" you can modify the saved data whether it's saved in plain text, binary blob or a SQL server. On pen and paper you can copy a new falsified ledger and throw away the original. I think that's fraud, so good luck with it.
- tacostakohashi 6y agoIf you do bookkeeping with pen and paper, you can throw away the page and replace it with a new piece of paper. The security mechanism is out of band - you keep the pages secure, and you also reconcile / audit your accounts with those of your bank, suppliers, customers, etc - it's never 100% within the medium of the accounts themselves.
- tomjen3 6y agoBut it being plaintext you can host it as git project on gitlab with a protected main branch that requires merge request approval, meaning you have a two man rule (and four eyes) for every change. You can't do that with quicken.