MySQL table designing for an Accounting system

Question

I am designing an online accounting system as a college project. I have got the following simple transactions.

1. Sales on cash $300

2. Cash burrowed from Smith $250

3. Electricity bill paid $50

I have referred Double Entry Accounting in a Relational Database and designed the above Transaction table(minus sign means the amount is credited). The id 1 and 2 belong to transaction 1, id 3 and 4 belong to transaction 2 and so on. How can I identify each two rows as a single transaction in MySQL database.For example if the first transaction to be selected how can I do it since there is no relationship between the two rows. If this design does not sound good can you suggest an alternative.

Answer 1

You should drop the two line design unless it's really necessary. I would merge the rows and add an extra field where you could store if it was cash or not and the amount value would be + when credited and - if debited (or reversed, I"m not good at accounting :))

Answer 2

Good Job.

The only thing I might add is two number columns for debit and credit. That would look just like a journal in the text books or old bookkeeping books. It would be a little more visibly obvious and handle any number of double entries. Your current amount column could be calculated by debit - credit if you like.

I do not think you need to make it relational unless you wanted a specific chart of accounts as a table, more complicated and less elegant. But, for more flexibly you could generate real time chart of accounts from the journal.

Answer 3

Since you are using MySQL relational database, you can add several tables.

To answer your question, you need to create another table to hold general information for each transaction (e.g. you could call it a TRANSACTIONS). This table could include Transaction ID, and Date Column. Now, reference the Transaction ID column of the TRANSACTIONS table in your currently existing table. This means record 1 and 2 will have one Transaction ID and so you can reference it as such in your queries.