---
title: "A ledger for engineers"
description: "Why fintech balances drift from the bank, and how a real-time double-entry ledger keeps them in lockstep."
canonical: "https://fragment.dev/blog/a-ledger-for-engineers"
date: "December 13, 2024"
---
# A ledger for engineers
Date: December 13, 2024
Author: Thomas Neckel
Position: CEO
Source: https://fragment.dev/blog/a-ledger-for-engineers
[Documentation index](https://fragment.dev/llms.txt)
## The fundamental flaw in fintech
In the rush to make every company a [fintech company](https://a16z.com/every-company-will-be-a-fintech-company/), the ledger was forgotten. And without a real-time ledger, the financial balances that were once always right are now [often wrong](https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/25/with-a16z-backed-synapses-collapse-baas-fintech-is-a-mess-and-10-million-consumers-could-be-hurt/?guccounter=1).
Fintech balances go wrong when they get out of sync with the bank and balance sheets they're built on. It's a common pattern and it's what got [Evolve/Synapse](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/09/evolve-synapse-bank-of-england-fca-fine-for-failing-to-prevent-fraud) into trouble. A real-time, double-entry ledger links them together and keeps them in lockstep. Instead of relying on finance teams to account for payments manually, Fragment accounts for them as they're made. We believe that fintech balances need a fintech database; a modern database for money.
[Visual: LedgerForEngineersDiagram. View on the HTML page.](https://fragment.dev/blog/a-ledger-for-engineers?mode=human)
## A real-time double-entry ledger
Fragment is meant for fintech engineers, builders of the countless marketplace, vertical SaaS and finance apps that involve keeping customer balances in order. Tracking a real-time view into what customers owe and own is a pain, and we want you to know: you don't have to worry about this part anymore. In less than a week, you can set up all the infrastructure you need to handle balances in a financially correct way. You don't have to recreate double-entry accounting, build your own database to enforce it, or stress about all the edge cases that could break it.
Since Fragment launched, dozens of companies have started using our ledger to build better fintech products. It's how, [Nala](https://www.nala.com/) tracks cross-border payments, [TruckSmarter](https://www.trucksmarter.com/) handles complex, multi-party payment flows and [Pleo](https://www.pleo.io/us) manages customer spend.
We're helping engineers spend less time worrying about balances and more time building better customer experiences.
## Where finance meets code
There's no good way to reconcile money moved in fintech products with your bank, card and accounting systems. When things don't reconcile they need to be fixed by hand. And because your books won't balance until everything's fixed, it takes lots of time and effort to close and audit them. Before Fragment, [Pleo](https://www.pleo.io/us) Head of Platform Stefan Christensen says,
"The answers to questions from regulators, investors and
customers lived in spreadsheets and other ad hoc systems. Fragment gives us one place to answer them."
## We're just getting started
Stripe gave startups the same payments infrastructure as Amazon and increased the GDP of the internet to $20 trillion. Lets see what's possible when we give startups the same financial infrastructure as [Square](https://developer.squareup.com/blog/books-an-immutable-double-entry-accounting-database-service/), [Stripe](https://stripe.com/blog/ledger-stripe-system-for-tracking-and-validating-money-movement) and [Uber](https://eng.uber.com/money-scale-strong-data/).
Reinventing the way people exchange value is going to be a long journey and the work we've done so far is just the first step. If our story resonates with you, [please reach out](https://fragment.dev/careers.md). We'd love your help. And, if you're an engineer and you want a ledger API that thinks the way you do, you can [email us](mailto:hello@fragment.dev) to request an API key or book a demo with our engineering team. We'd love to talk with you.