Financial Truth
How source financial facts differ from balances, P&L, and other derived views.
Financial truth
Financial meaning in O2A starts from one source of truth: append-only Ledger Events. Every movement of value is a Ledger Event, and history is never edited — corrections are made by recording compensating events. Wallet balances, P&L views, and cost-of-goods figures are interpretations rebuilt from those events, not independent records.
How It Works
A Ledger Event is an immutable financial fact. A Wallet's balance is derived by reading the relevant events, never edited directly. An Offering's realized cost of goods is derived from events classified as offering COGS. A Node's P&L view is derived from Ledger Events together with configuration policy (for example, how general COGS is allocated). All of these are period-scoped, rebuildable views over the source facts — caches are allowed only if they can be regenerated from the events.
Statements
The statements below state each rule precisely.
- A Ledger Event is an append-only financial fact.
- Wallet balance derives from Ledger Events.
- Offering realized cost of goods derives from Ledger Events.
- A Node P&L view derives from Ledger Events and configuration policy.
- Derived financial views are rebuildable views over source financial facts.
Why It Matters
Keeping a single append-only source means every financial answer is reproducible and auditable: the same events and the same policy always yield the same view. It also draws a hard line — balances and P&L are derived views over the events rather than parallel ledgers, so they can never silently disagree with the facts. This is the principle the Ledger Event and P&L pages depend on.
Related
- Ledger Event — the append-only source fact.
- Wallet — balances derive from Ledger Events.
- Source Truth — the cross-cutting derivation rule.
- Financial Views — the derived views and their period scope.