Simplified double-entry accounting

Every transaction has an origin and a destination

When you record a transaction, you choose where the money comes from and where it goes. An expense leaves an account and disappears into a category; buying stocks leaves your checking account and enters your portfolio; a mortgage payment leaves your account and reduces the outstanding principal, splitting out the interest portion.

• Expense and income: affect the month's result
• Transfer: moves balance between accounts without being income or expense
• Asset purchase or sale: converts cash into net worth and back
• Debt payment: automatically splits principal from interest

Zero double counting

Because every operation has both legs, nothing gets counted twice. Moving money to your broker doesn't show up as an expense, contributing to a pension plan doesn't reduce your net worth, and paying down a mortgage isn't an expense — it's a change in the composition of what you own and what you owe.

Balances calculated, not typed in

Each account's balance is the sum of its transactions since the opening balance, not a number you maintain by hand. If netclariq's balance and your bank's don't match, the difference tells you exactly what's missing, and reconciliation helps you find it.

Net worth comes out on its own

With both legs of every transaction recorded, net worth needs no upkeep: assets minus liabilities, updated with every transaction and saved month by month so you can see how it evolves.