One Diagram That Replaces Two Books: Mastering Core Accounting Architecture

Overview

Design should start from a global perspective, guided by the overall architecture, and then implement local components. The diagram below shows the relationship between various business systems, accounting types, and the accounting core system.

The accounting global architecture is tightly linked with peripheral systems such as transaction, payment, and settlement systems.

1. Business Systems Drive Accounting

Each system generates corresponding accounting entries and calls the core accounting service, submitting business transaction details according to various accounting interface protocols.

Payment core records channel settlement transactions.

Transaction core records merchant pending settlements and marketing activities.

Settlement core records settled merchant funds, profit sharing, channel costs, and merchant fees.

Payout core records disbursements and refunds.

Reconciliation core records settled channel accounts.

Because merchants need invoices and different accounting types require different parameters, differentiated accounting interfaces (e.g., acquisition, payout, settlement, authentication) can be defined and maintained in the accounting interface module for easy addition and adjustment.

2. Voucher Generation and Fund Handling

After business transaction flows are generated, accounting vouchers are created according to accounting rules. Using a 2001 receipt flow as an example, two vouchers are produced:

One voucher records the principal entry: “Debit settlement receivable, credit merchant pending settlement”.

The other records the fee transfer: “Debit merchant fee, credit platform fee income”.

Based on the voucher rules, two vouchers are generated as shown in the next diagram.

Voucher 002 line 03 requires unilateral fund handling: the account subsystem creates an account detail, debiting the merchant’s fee account and recording the balance before and after the transaction.

Because e‑commerce receipt volumes are large, voucher lines are often aggregated to reduce data size for accounting, while still allowing traceability back to the original detailed vouchers.

3. Document Chain and Relationships

In the processing chain from business to accounting, a series of documents are produced. Business systems generate business documents, which are submitted to the accounting core; the accounting system then creates corresponding documents.

The relationship among these documents is illustrated below: from business transaction flow to accounting vouchers, then to entry flows and detailed ledgers, finally posting to various ledgers and updating account balances.