Setting Up Accounts

Managing financial accounts is a crucial aspect of many applications. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a solid understanding of how to manage accounts using the Twisp GraphQL API and be ready to incorporate this functionality into your own applications.

Getting started

The easiest way to interact with the Twisp GraphQL API is to login to the Twisp Console and use the GraphiQL tool.

If you prefer to use your own GraphQL client, you can send authenticated requests to the Twisp API endpoint.

To seed your setup with some example accounts, sets, and tran codes, you can use the Example Setup.

Create an account

The createAccount mutation is used to create new accounts with the given accountId, name, code, description, normalBalanceType, and status.

The accountId is a unique identifier for the account that is being created, and it is required as an input field for this mutation. The name input field specifies the name for the new account that is being created. The code input field is a shorthand code for the account, which is often an abbreviated version of the account name. The description input field is a brief explanation of the account that is being created.

The status input field represents the current status for the new account that is being created. This field specifies whether the account is active or closed (locked). By default, all accounts are ACTIVE. When an account is LOCKED, it cannot be changed, and any attempt to write a ledger entry to this account will raise an error.

Copymutation CreateAccount($accountCardSettlementId: UUID!) {
  createAccount(
    input: {
      accountId: $accountCardSettlementId
      name: "Card Settlement"
      code: "SETTLE.CARD"
      description: "Settlement account for card transactions."
      normalBalanceType: CREDIT
      status: ACTIVE
    }
  ) {
    accountId
    name
    code
    description
    normalBalanceType
  }
}

This createAccount operation returns the newly created account's accountId, name, code, description, and normalBalanceType.

Update an account

To update an existing account, we can use the updateAccount mutation. We need to provide the id of the account we want to update, as well as the fields we want to update. Here's an example mutation:

Copymutation UpdateAccount($accountCardSettlementId: UUID!) {
  updateAccount(id: $accountCardSettlementId, input: { code: "CARD.SETTLE" }) {
    accountId
    code
    history(first: 2) {
      nodes {
        version
        code
      }
    }
  }
}

This is a GraphQL mutation operation that allows the user to update an account's code. The mutation is called updateAccount and takes in two arguments: id and input. The id argument is a unique identifier for the account being updated, and the input argument contains the updates to apply to the account. In this specific example, the id argument is passed in with the $accountCardSettlementId variable.

The response from this mutation includes several fields. The accountId field returns the unique identifier for the updated account, while the code field returns the updated code for the account. Additionally, the history field returns the two most recent versions of the account, along with their corresponding version and code. This allows the user to track the changes made to the account over time.

Overall, this mutation provides a flexible and powerful way to update accounts in the Twisp system, and the response includes valuable information that can be used to track changes and ensure data integrity.

Delete an account

Because Twisp is an immutable database, we cannot fully "delete" an account. Deleting an account in Twisp instead marks its status as LOCKED, meaning that no entries can be posted to the account.

To delete (lock) an account, we can use the deleteAccount mutation. We need to provide the id of the account we want to delete. Here's an example mutation:

Copymutation DeleteAccount($accountCustomerBobbyId: UUID!) {
  deleteAccount(id: $accountCustomerBobbyId) {
    accountId
    status
  }
}

Once the account is deleted, this mutation returns two fields: accountId and status. accountId is a UUID that uniquely identifies the deleted account, while status is the current status of the account.

This mutation is useful if you need to remove an account that is no longer needed or was created in error. By deleting the account, you can ensure that it is no longer used in any future transactions or reports.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we explored how to create, update, and delete accounts using the Twisp GraphQL API. We saw how to use the createAccount, updateAccount, and deleteAccount mutations to perform these operations. With this knowledge, you can now begin building your own applications that use the Twisp API to manage financial accounts.