Practice Project Flow Advice

[atrum]

Hows everybody doing today?

 

I am trying to get some more skill points on my programing experience, so I have decided to make a funds balance application. Already I am having some problems coming up with the flow of the applications core feature; The part of the book that does the math for me.

 

 

What I need advice on is the flow of how it takes the existing balance and debits or credits funds, and how to handle multiple entries at one time.

 

So I start with an initial balance of $0.00 and I add an entry to deposit $1204.53.

 

Do I first get the current balance and store that in a variable, and then add the new amount to that and take the new balance and place it in the next row of the table?

I feel like I am missing something but I am not sure.

 

Could anyone offer any insight on this? Also I am not asking for code I am asking for more of a flow chart of events.

 

Thanks in advance.

[thehippy]

When I'm given a project that I'm unfamiliar at some level that has a real world analogue I go to the real world example to see how they do it.  I'm not a fan of reinventing the wheel, I like wheels the way they are.  It also gives me a dialogue I can share with my client. 

 

With financial information there are standards and practices kept, internationally and nationally, sometimes even by region.  So, I'd start there with the standards, give them a solid read and while doing so try to come up with a model that will work in parallel.  Read up on the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) and the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as a good start.  You should also be aware of laws in your country and countries your application could be used in.  Financial information is very important to people, corporations and more importantly governments and there can be some safe-guarding laws for keeping it electronically.

 

As a PHP programmer I think we tend to get a little more familiar with databases, you'll probably have heard of ACID storage engines and transactional queries and dealing with financial information you'll want to definitely start utilizing them, making sure things are inserted or not, basically doing error-handling at the database.

 

Balances are presentation values, they are the result of other hard values.  Generally bookkeeping information you'll find is kept like a log, one you can only add to.  It is also the source where nearly all information is extracted from.  You put a negative amount (debit) into your record book and you can put a positive amount (credit).  Balance is only a summation of values at a time in the log or a range of time, or some other metric.

[atrum]

Thank you I appreciate the information you provided.

 

Also on the "Reinventing The Wheel" Thing. Sorry but this has been one of my biggest pet peeves I've experienced in programing. I am one of those people that desires to learn what makes that wheel tick from the inside out. That means building my own, and I find its always been the best way to learn for me.

 

Sorry for the rant.

 

Thanks again.