Anchorline is designed to be your ledger of record. Every entry is immutable, every export is deterministic, and every structure can nest deeper without losing the thread.

Append-only by design

Instead of editing rows in place, Anchorline writes a new entry whenever something changes. That means balances can be replayed at any point in time, and collections show a full audit trail of ownership, tags, and annotations. Immutable history gives you confidence in audits, collaborations, and compliance checks.

Balances versus collections

Balances track quantities you increase or decrease, such as cash envelopes, internal credits, carbon offsets, or time allowances. Each entry includes direction, amount, context, and attachments, so the math is always explainable.

Collections track discrete items. Think of books, inventory bins, recipes, or bookmarks. You can define metadata fields, add tags, reference attachments, and connect related ledgers. Collections benefit from the same append-only guarantees: edits are new events, never edits-in-place.

Hierarchical child ledgers

Ledgers rarely live alone. Anchorline supports parent-child relationships so you can align balances with projects, locations, or shared interests. Parent ledgers roll up totals from children while keeping each ledger’s history intact. You can drill down to any child ledger, apply filters, and export just that slice.

Exports you can trust

Every ledger exports to CSV or NDJSON with stable IDs and schema metadata. You can load the files into spreadsheets, warehouses, or automation scripts without guesswork. Export jobs are deterministic: running the same export twice will yield the same ordering and references.

Friendly for everyone

Non-technical friends and family get clean forms, quick actions, and search. Power users get keyboard shortcuts, API access, and templated ledger creation. Append-only doesn’t mean rigid; it simply means nobody overwrites the truth accidentally.