Double-Entry Ledger - Built-in Accounting for Payments

How does OwnPay track every money movement with accounting-grade precision? OwnPay uses a double-entry ledger bookkeeping engine for bulletproof financial audit readiness. All payments, fees, and transfers are recorded using balanced debits and credits.

Ledger tables

op_ledger_accounts - Account definitions (Cash, Merchant Payable, Platform Fee Revenue)
op_ledger_transactions - Journal entries linking to payment events
op_ledger_entries - Individual debit and credit line items

Journal balance constraint

Every ledger entry must post balanced debits and credits. The system validates using bccomp() at 4-decimal precision and throws InvalidArgumentException on unbalanced journals.

Account directionality

Balances adjust according to standard GAAP accounting rules:

Account Type	Debits	Credits
Asset / Expense	Increase (+)	Decrease (-)
Liability / Equity / Revenue	Decrease (-)	Increase (+)

Brand isolation

Ledger accounts are strictly bound to a brand/merchant context:

$account = $ledgerRepo->findOrCreateAccount($name, $type, $currency, $merchantId);

Double-post prevention

The system uses SELECT ... FOR UPDATE on (merchant_id, reference_type, reference_id, description) to guard against double-posting.

Reconciliation

Daily reconciliation

Compare OwnPay transactions with gateway
Verify amounts match
Check for discrepancies
Report any mismatches

Reconciliation tool

php public/index.php admin/reconcile --merchant=YOUR_MERCHANT_ID

Best practices

Never manually modify op_ledger_accounts.balance
Always go through LedgerService for ledger operations
Run daily balance verification checks
Monitor the BalanceVerificationJob alerts

​Ledger tables

​Journal balance constraint

​Account directionality

​Brand isolation

​Double-post prevention

​Reconciliation

​Daily reconciliation

​Reconciliation tool

​Best practices

​Further reading