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Adjustments
Adjustments are used to correct totals without hiding what happened.
They exist for situations where the recorded history is accurate, but the resulting state needs to be brought back into alignment.
What an adjustment is
An adjustment is a correcting action.
It does not delete, edit, or negate earlier events. Instead, it records an explicit correction that accounts for the difference.
An adjustment answers the question: what needs to change now to make this right.
When to use an adjustment
Use an adjustment when:
- A quantity is incorrect and the cause is known or irrelevant
- Historical events should remain visible
- You want the current state to be accurate without rewriting the past
Common examples:
- A balance is off due to a missed entry
- A rounding error accumulated over time
- External data does not perfectly reconcile
Adjustments in balanced logs
In a balanced log, adjustments affect quantities.
An adjustment event records a change that brings the total back to the correct value. The adjustment is part of the timeline and contributes to the derived balance like any other event.
The original imbalance remains visible, and the adjustment explains how it was resolved.
What adjustments are not
Adjustments are not replacements for normal actions.
If you know exactly what should have happened, record that action instead. Use adjustments when the correction itself is the meaningful event.
Adjustments should be deliberate and explicit, not routine.
Why adjustments exist
Real systems are imperfect.
Adjustments acknowledge that reality while preserving trust in the data. They let you move forward without pretending the past was cleaner than it was.
A clear adjustment is better than a silent edit.
A simple rule
If you are fixing the present without erasing the past, you are making an adjustment.
That is exactly what they are for.