System Documentation
Complete operational guide and technical specifications for the Beacon Children's Centre Double-Entry Accounting & Financial Companion Engine.
1. System Overview
Beacon Children's Centre Accounting Engine automates financial management, ledger balancing, and patient/clinic invoice reconciliation. Designed specifically as a financial companion engine, it bridges clinical services with bank-grade double-entry accounting.
Strict Balancing
Total Debits must equal Total Credits on every single transaction before committing.
Hospital Syncing
Live reconciliation with the secondary pgsql_hospital invoice database.
OCR Engine 2 Integration
Automated text extraction, date parsing, and fuzzy merchant matching for receipts.
2. Double-Entry Accounting Engine
All business actions (Expenses, Sales, Patient Payments, Supplier Bills) generate balanced JournalEntry and JournalEntryLine records automatically via the core engine.
| Account Classification | Normal Balance | Debit Effect | Credit Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset (1xxx) | Debit | Increases | Decreases |
| Liability (2xxx) | Credit | Decreases | Increases |
| Equity (3xxx) | Credit | Decreases | Increases |
| Revenue (4xxx) | Credit | Decreases | Increases |
| Expense (5xxx) | Debit | Increases | Decreases |
3. Chart of Accounts (COA)
Beacon Children's Centre uses a structured hierarchical parent-child Chart of Accounts with standard account prefix auto-generation:
Account Code Auto-Generation
When creating a sub-account under parent account 1000 (Cash & Bank), the system automatically assigns code 1000-1, 1000-2, etc.
4. Hospital Invoice Pool Reconciliation
The Invoice Pool component allows clinic administrators at Beacon Children's Centre to search and reconcile patient billing logs synced live from the secondary PostgreSQL database (pgsql_hospital).
Supported payment channels include: M-Pesa, NCPWD, Insurance, ProBono, and Cash.
5. OCR Receipt Parsing & Fuzzy Merchant Matching
When uploading expense receipt images, Beacon Finance invokes the OCR.space API Engine 2 to extract transaction amounts, receipt dates, and supplier names. Key features include:
- Typo Normalization: Corrects common OCR errors (e.g.,
5, OCO→5000). - Fuzzy Merchant Matching: Strips noise words (
Co,Ltd,Inc) and matches existing suppliers using a 70%+ similarity algorithm.
6. Multi-Bill Payments & Overpayment Allocations
Payments made across multiple bills automatically distribute chronologically against outstanding supplier invoices. Overpayments are tracked cleanly as credit balances on supplier accounts.
7. Immutability & Audit Integrity
Accounting Integrity Policy
In accordance with financial compliance rules, posted journal entries cannot be deleted. Any corrections require an adjusting journal entry or explicit reversal.