How the money is kept

Before the money screens make sense, four rules explain all of them. Every dollar in Haven is a row on a lease's ledger, and those rows are the only truth about what anybody owes.

1. Charges are positive, payments are negative. Rent, a late fee, a repair billed back — all charges. A payment is a credit against them.
2. A balance is never stored. It is the sum of the rows, worked out when you look at it. There is no figure to get out of step and nothing to re-run at month end.
3. Nothing is deleted, ever. A mistake is voided, which keeps the row, the reason, who did it and when. Last year's books cannot quietly change.
4. A returned payment adds rows, it does not remove one. The original payment stays and is marked returned with its bank code; a reversal and the returned-payment fee are posted on top. The history reads the way it happened.

Charges attach to the lease, not to a person, which is why every liable roommate sees the same balance. It is one debt, owed jointly, and showing it any other way would be a fiction.