Reservation Ledger
Reservation Ledger is an append-only record of every financial operation on a reservation: deposits, charges, payments, refunds, corrections. It rebuilds the full financial history and is the audit foundation.
Definition
The Reservation Ledger is an append-only financial ledger per reservation where every operation (deposit received, deposit returned, additional charge, payment, refund, correction, cancellation) is recorded as a separate, immutable entry. The model comes from bookkeeping: instead of updating a 'paid amount' field, you add a new (+ or -) entry; current balance = sum of all entries.
How it works
Each ledger entry has: timestamp, operation type (charge, payment, deposit received, deposit returned, refund, reversal), amount, payment method, audit (who did the operation), optional description, and a reference to another operation (e.g. a reversal points at the entry it cancels). Reservation balance = sum(entries). Cancelling a reservation doesn't delete entries. It adds refund entries. This lets you reconstruct any past moment ('what was the balance on March 3 at 14:00?') and is critical for accounting audits.
Why it matters for a rental company
Traditional systems update a 'paid amount' field, which loses history and makes the prior state impossible to reconstruct. The Reservation Ledger kills entire classes of bugs (negative amounts, duplicate refunds, forgotten adjustments) and is the foundation for accounting compliance (every correction visible, every transfer recorded). Critical for audits and dispute resolution: a customer claims they paid, and you show the exact history.
What OneRental does
In OneRental every booking has an append-only payment history. You record charges, payments and refunds, plus the deposit received, returned or applied to charges, with the payment method (cash, card on site, bank transfer, BLIK) and who added the entry. The balance and deposit status show on the booking. A manager or owner corrects a mistake with a reversal entry, and the full history stays visible. Separately, from the Growth plan, the audit log records who changed what in the system and when, and you can export it to CSV.
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