Timing Fields in Linked Transactions

Ledger Transaction objects have a field effective_at which represents when the underlying money movement occurred. If a Ledger Transaction is linked to a payment in Modern Treasury, Modern Treasury can automatically set this field based on the timing of the underlying payment.

Ensuring that the Ledger Transaction's effective_at will help provide an accurate view when comparing bank and ledger account balances.

Configuring automatic behavior

When you link a Ledger Transaction to a payment in Modern Treasury without specifying an effective_at, the effective_at field will be set and managed by Modern Treasury throughout the Ledger Transaction's lifecycle. Modern Treasury will update the effective_at field once the timing of the underlying bank transaction is known.

Ledger Transactions automatically created by Modern Treasury will also follow this behavior.

If you specify an effective_at on the Ledger Transaction, Modern Treasury will not manage or update the field automatically.

Behavior of the field

When a pending ledger transaction is first created and linked to an unreconciled Payment Order, Expected Payment, Return, Reversal, Incoming Payment Detail, or Paper Item, its effective_at will be set to the created_at of the ledger transaction.

As soon as the payment object is reconciled to a bank Transaction object, the Ledger Transaction will inherit the underlying timing of the bank Transaction. The effective_at field on the ledger transaction will get updated to transaction.as_of_time if it is provided by the bank, or the transaction.as_of_date otherwise. If transaction.as_of_date is used, the ledger transaction timestamp is set to the start of day (00:00:00) in the bank's reported timezone.