I Built an Open-Source Platform Foundation for Accounting-Centric Business Apps

try { if(localStorage) { let currentUser = localStorage.getItem('current_user'); if (currentUser) { currentUser = JSON.parse(currentUser); if (currentUser.id === 3898160) { document.getElementById('article-show-container').classList.add('current-user-is-article-author'); } } } } catch (e) { console.error(e); } NGB Platform Posted on Apr 28 I Built an Open-Source Platform Foundation for Accounting-Centric Business Apps #dotnet #postgres #opensource #architecture The problem I kept running into Every serious line-of-business project I worked on eventually forced me to solve the same hard problems from scratch. Not the fun architectural problems. The tedious, load-bearing ones that every business system needs but most general-purpose frameworks deliberately do not provide: A document model with lifecycle, posting, and reversal An accounting engine with real ledger semantics Operational registers for stock, balances, and settlements Reference registers for prices, rates, and effective facts An audit log that explains what happened and why Metadata-driven UI so forms are not hardcoded screen by screen A clean way to build multiple vertical solutions on one shared core The first time you build these things, you think: OK, that was hard, but now I know how. The second time, you think: I should have kept that code from the last project. The third time, you think: There has to be a better way. That is the problem I wanted to solve. Two common options — and a missing third path In practice, teams usually end up choosing between two imperfect options. Option 1: Generic web frameworks ASP.NET Core is excellent. But it deliberately stays out of your business domain. It gives you HTTP, routing, middleware, dependency injection, authentication integration, and hosting primitives. That is exactly what a general-purpose framework should do. But it also means every serious business application team eventually has to design its own document lifecycle, posting model, audit trail, reporting approach, and business state tracking. Option 2: Large ERP products SAP, Oracle, Dynamics, and similar systems have solved many of these problems. But they solve them inside a product. Customization can be difficult. Vendor lock-in is real. The cost and complexity can be high. And for many teams, the problem is not “we need to install an ERP.” The problem is: We need to build a business application, but we do not want to rebuild the same accounting and workflow foundation again. The missing option: a reusable platform foundation This is what I set out to build. Not another generic web framework. Not a full ERP replacement. But a reusable open-source foundation for accounting-centric business applications. What I built — NGB Platform NGB Platform is an open-source platform foundation for accounting-centric business applications, built on .NET 10 and PostgreSQL. The goal is to handle the hard, load-bearing concerns at the architecture level, so teams can focus on their vertical domain instead of rebuilding infrastructure on every project. Core architecture At the center is NGB.Runtime — the orchestration layer for document workflow, posting, reporting, validation, and response shaping. Specialized engines handle specific concerns: NGB.Accounting — ledger semantics, posting flows, debit/credit effects, and financial reporting NGB.OperationalRegisters — movement-based state tracking such as stock levels, settlement balances, and operational balances NGB.ReferenceRegisters —…

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