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Last reviewed: 2026-06-16

UX Principles

Purpose

BooksPlus usability must support accounting integrity, close discipline, and user confidence.

The goal is not to make accounting trivial. The goal is to make accounting work understandable, guided, and safe.

Core rules

  • Users must be able to tell what state the books, periods, transactions, reports, and close work are in.
  • Users must be able to tell what needs attention next.
  • Routine work should be fast and low-friction.
  • Exceptions should be classified and guided rather than mysterious.
  • Validation and errors should use business language.
  • High-risk actions should be visible and deliberate.
  • Consequential actions should show a preview or summary before completion.
  • Correction paths should be explicit, safe, and auditable.
  • Evidence, source documents, approvals, and audit references should be discoverable where they matter.
  • Expert users should be able to move quickly without forcing novice users to guess.

State clarity

Every important workspace should answer:

  • What am I looking at?
  • What state is it in?
  • What needs attention?
  • What can I do next?

Relevant states include draft, reviewed, posted, reversed, open, soft closed, hard closed, reopened, blocked, warning, ready for review, and approved.

Business language

Messages should use accounting and business terms rather than implementation terms.

Prefer:

  • This period is hard closed and cannot accept new postings.
  • Inventory valuation does not match the inventory control account.

Avoid:

  • Illegal state transition.
  • Model validation failed.

Consequential actions

Before a consequential action completes, the user should understand:

  • what will change;
  • why it matters;
  • whether it can be corrected or reversed;
  • what evidence, approvals, audit trail, or period controls are affected.

Consequential actions include posting, reversal, period close, reopen, waiver, protected setup changes, valuation rebuilds, backup restore, sensitive export, and similar high-impact work.

Exception handling

Exceptions should identify:

  • what failed;
  • why it matters;
  • what object or period it relates to;
  • whether it is a blocker, warning, or informational item;
  • what the next action is.

Accounting workspaces

Accounting workspaces should favor readable density over decorative design.

Tables, registers, dashboards, and exception lists should support scanning, sorting, filtering, searching, comparison, drilldown, and action-taking without losing context.

Date clarity

The interface should distinguish date meanings where they differ:

  • entry date;
  • posting or effective date;
  • financial period;
  • as-of date;
  • generated date;
  • close date.

Accessibility and readability

BooksPlus should prefer:

  • clear headings;
  • strong labels;
  • adequate contrast;
  • keyboard-friendly data entry;
  • predictable layouts;
  • restrained visual noise.

Acceptance expectations

A feature is not complete merely because it works technically.

Major features should let the user:

  • determine current state within seconds;
  • identify the next action without guesswork;
  • understand validation failures in business terms;
  • preview consequential action impact;
  • find related evidence;
  • recover from errors and exceptions without being stranded.
  • vision-and-product-principles.md
  • contracts/kernel.contract.md
  • accounting/posting-and-reversal.md
  • accounting/close.md
  • accounting/source-documents.md
  • contracts/security/protected-action-contract.md