Orientation — how the system thinks

Every money event in the platform is a cycle: a set of business forms you fill in order. Each form does two jobs — it stores the business record (an invoice, a payment, an expense) and it posts a balanced double-entry journal to the General Ledger.

You never type debit and credit lines for routine work. You fill a business form; the books update. Manual journals exist, but they are the exception: opening balances, adjustments, and reclassifications.

• A posting must fall inside an OPEN accounting period that covers the entry date. If not, the system refuses to post.
• Every posting is idempotent — re-running the same business event does not create a duplicate journal.
• Posted entries are never edited or deleted. To undo, you post a reversing entry. The system does this automatically for voids, cancellations and deletions.
• Reports are the book of record; they read only POSTED journals.
• Foreign amounts convert to your base currency using a stored rate. A missing rate is an error, never a silent 1.0.

This is the most important shared fact in the entire manual. Operational records and financial postings are not the same thing. Knowing which is which prevents almost every reconciliation problem.

• Stock is tracked at the variant, not the product.
• Available = On hand − Allocated; allocation happens at sales-order approval.
• Purchase-order approval posts nothing; goods receipt posts Inventory / GRNI.
• Only ISSUED sales invoices post revenue; only ISSUED demurrage invoices post demurrage income.
• Containers move one step at a time in a fixed order; the demurrage clock starts at registration.
• Documents go DRAFT → ISSUED → SIGNED → DELIVERED; VOID is the exit.
• Every posted entry is reversed, never edited.

These exist in the app but are not sources of journal entries. Treat them as operational tools, not accounting events.

• Inventory quantity movements (adjust, transfer, fulfil, warehouse bridge) — stock only.
• Port documents (waybill, gate pass, loading request, delivery order, customs register) — records only.
• The sales-order step — reserves and issues stock; revenue posts at the invoice.
• AI assistant and insights — read-only analysis; proposals require human approval and never auto-post.
• Payroll and platform billing — record payroll through a manual journal or an operating expense if you need it in the books. Platform billing is your software subscription, not company accounting.

The chapters are numbered in operating order, not by menu order. Read them in sequence for a clean setup, or jump straight to the chapter for the module you run.