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Double Entry Accounting for Developers

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Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#91

Post by mikeyjk »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #32
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Note to people looking for job security: there is a HUGE need for developers who understand finance. The fundamental problem is that most finance people can't speak the language of software development (the biggest problem I've seen is that finance people tend to be very poor at writing out a spec of what the software should do - they're much better at looking at a set of examples and then telling you if the calculat…

Interesting. Are there any other fields which desperately need this cross culture?

There would surely be a huge amount. Another space where you'd need a whisperer would be anywhere near regulatory data. E.g. government mandating data is reported in a certain way. These are domain specific and typically cruel and unusual.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#92

Post by jonahbenton »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #32
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Note to people looking for job security: there is a HUGE need for developers who understand finance. The fundamental problem is that most finance people can't speak the language of software development (the biggest problem I've seen is that finance people tend to be very poor at writing out a spec of what the software should do - they're much better at looking at a set of examples and then telling you if the calculat…

Interesting. Are there any other fields which desperately need this cross culture?

Health and tech. In the US the CURES act rules just went into effect. Personal health records are ours, finally, and workflows around managing and leveraging for life extension, health, quantitative self are just in early, early stages.

Real estate and tech. Rona is a full on once in a lifetime disaster for much of the industry. All of the financing models are going to collapse. But the buildings are still going to be there. And there is, finally, after 25 years, a full digital title workflow. So from the smallest details of managing them to the biggest deals in financing, selling, servicing, earning, and tokenizing- green field.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#93

Post by jonahbenton »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Note to people looking for job security: there is a HUGE need for developers who understand finance. The fundamental problem is that most finance people can't speak the language of software development (the biggest problem I've seen is that finance people tend to be very poor at writing out a spec of what the software should do - they're much better at looking at a set of examples and then telling you if the calculat…

Yup. I just commented above to someone, saying their accounting BA before switching to CS was a waste of time. Too bad they feel that way. Opportunities for that combination have never been brighter. Enormous niches in debt and banking are in the midst of a wholesale tech transformation.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#94

Post by galaxyLogic »

I think simplest rule for remembering what debit and credit mean is that "debit" means "deposit/indebted" and "credit" means "to give someone credit".

Thus for an account debits means increases in the amount held by the account and credits mean decreases. Because it is Double Entry an increase somewhere is always a decrease somewhere else. When we deposit an amount to an account we must also credit another account which tracks where that amount came from.

I prefer to think of it as if every account had a person who is in charge of that account. If money comes out of the account we give "credit" to the person in charge of that account. And when we deposit to an account we debit it, in other words the person in charge of the account becomes "INDEBTED" by that amount.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#95

Post by WesleyJohnson »

jonahbenton wrote: post #92
throwaway45349 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Are there any other fields which desperately need this cross culture?

Health and tech. In the US the CURES act rules just went into effect. Personal health records are ours, finally, and workflows around managing and leveraging for life extension, health, quantitative self are just in early, early stages. Real estate and tech. Rona is a full on once in a lifetime disaster for much of the industry. All of the financing models are going to collapse. But the buildings are still going to b…

After 25 years? Was there a full digital title workflow in 1995 or are you referencing a wide adoption of the internet?

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#96

Post by jkulubya »

juped wrote: post #79
jlj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned from my accounting 101 professor, "debits on the left, credits on the right." Then later after learning about natural account balances, it all made sense. If an account has a debit balance, a debit increases the balance and a credit decreases it. An asset or expense account has a debit balance. Credit balance is just the opposite. Liabilities, revenue, accounts. Credit is an increase, debit decrease. (I thi…

Equity accounts are confusing.

I wish I could tell you how to remember it from first principles, but I can’t do what I did was burn the A = L + (OE/Equity) accounting equation into my head. Then I remember that the when my bank balance goes up, the bank speaks of a credit in their accounts which is a debit to assets in my account. Then L + OE must be credit accounts.

Why are OE and L on the same side? Well to finance an asset, say a new car for your business, the company would either take on some debt (L) or you’d put in some of your own money (OE) in exchange for more ownership. I don’t know if that’s more confusing or less

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#97

Post by quickthrower2 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Note to people looking for job security: there is a HUGE need for developers who understand finance. The fundamental problem is that most finance people can't speak the language of software development (the biggest problem I've seen is that finance people tend to be very poor at writing out a spec of what the software should do - they're much better at looking at a set of examples and then telling you if the calculat…

I'm not so sure. I reckon you just hire the people who know a lot about finance in to a Business Analysis role and you're OK. You don't need single brains that know everything, just people working well in a team.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#98

Post by qznc »

goat_whisperer wrote: post #4

From the site: "I found the core explanation of double entry accounting to be confusing. After some time I distilled it down to the following: "Debits decrease the value of an account. Always. [1] Credits increase the value of an account. Always. [1] "[1] (1, 2) This is absolutely not what accountancy teaches. You’ll quickly see that there is a lot of wrangling over what account types get increased/decreased with a d…

In my opinion the core idea is about the data model: Double entry accounting stores movements of money instead of accounts.

Everything else follows from that idea plus a bunch of terminology.

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#99

Post by jonahbenton »

WesleyJohnson wrote: post #95
jonahbenton wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Health and tech. In the US the CURES act rules just went into effect. Personal health records are ours, finally, and workflows around managing and leveraging for life extension, health, quantitative self are just in early, early stages. Real estate and tech. Rona is a full on once in a lifetime disaster for much of the industry. All of the financing models are going to collapse. But the buildings are still going to b…

After 25 years? Was there a full digital title workflow in 1995 or are you referencing a wide adoption of the internet?

Neither; 25 is somewhat arbitrary, and I'm very much not an expert in the space, just an interested observer, but generally speaking the idea that the various artifacts and workflows needed to establish and trace and transfer and finance and so forth real property could be fully digital and supported by adequate legal infrastructure started in earnest in the mid 1990s with MERS [1], early eNote [2] work, and many others. I don't have good references handy for early work on digital titles themselves, but my understanding is that this also started, more with the rise of PCs than the internet specifically. This all has only recently reached maturity, and now COVID has accelerated adoption [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortgage_Electronic_Registrati... 2. https://www.theice.com/publicdocs/eNote_White_Paper.pdf 3. https://www.dlapiper.com/en/us/insights/publications/2020/04...

Re: Double Entry Accounting for Developers

#100

Post by jonahbenton »

et-al wrote: post #43
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #29

Note to people looking for job security: there is a HUGE need for developers who understand finance. The fundamental problem is that most finance people can't speak the language of software development (the biggest problem I've seen is that finance people tend to be very poor at writing out a spec of what the software should do - they're much better at looking at a set of examples and then telling you if the calculat…

Aside from the obvious PayPal, SQ, and Stripe, would you (and other folks) please share some companies one should look into?

Those businesses are about transactions. Now think about assets, deposit and cash management accounts, and debt. Not so much about companies, but transformation of industries.
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