Principles
Before any feature, there are commitments we intend to keep. These are the five standards we've held onto through the design of Asset Story, along with the shape each one takes in the product itself.
We record in a double-entry structure where a single error surfaces immediately. Books that don't reconcile don't get waved through. In single-entry, a wrong number changes nothing; in double-entry, the two sides disagree and tell you so.
In the productIf debit and credit totals don't match, the save button won't act. Using the same account on both sides of one transaction is blocked too.
A monthly loan payment doesn't get flattened into one expense. Principal is debt going down; only interest is a real cost. Blend them and you get a strange ledger where paying off debt appears to make you poorer.
In the productOne transaction can carry several debit lines. Split a loan payment into mortgage principal and interest expense, with the single account it left on the credit side.
Acquisition is recorded as acquisition and depreciation as depreciation, so the real movement of asset value shows without distortion. You didn't lose $12,000 the month you bought the car — and that car isn't worth the sticker price three years later. Both facts belong in the books.
In the productFixed assets get their own accounts, and depreciation is recorded as a separate transaction. The moment an asset appears and the process of it losing value are kept at different points in time.
Families and organizations should be able to look at the same ledger. Sharing isn't a feature bolted on later; it's where we started. Half of what makes money hard isn't arithmetic — it's that the people involved aren't looking at the same numbers.
In the productPersonal and shared profiles were designed with different storage structures from the beginning. Shared profiles manage members and roles on their own, rather than carving up a personal ledger after the fact.
We don't stop at display; we build so the product can explain where a number came from. A screen with one big total is easy to make, but if you can't tap into it and reach the evidence, nothing changes.
In the productAny account opens into a T-account, and choosing a counterpart filters to just those transactions. Financial ratios carry their formula alongside them — debt ÷ assets, and so on.
One more thing
We don't drive engagement with more notifications, streak counters designed to make you anxious, or comparisons against other people's averages. A ledger should be something you open because you want to see it, not because an app nagged you.