Post Your First Journal in 5 Minutes

This is the shortest path from zero to a real double-entry entry in the ledger. No SDK, no setup — just an access token and one API call. If you only do one thing to evaluate Paprel, do this.

You need: a terminal with curl, and sandbox keys (self-serve, no sales call).

1. Get sandbox keys (1 min)

Create a developer account and grab a sandbox token at sandbox.paprel.com. The sandbox is an isolated tenant with real OpenAPI clients and real signed events — the same wire format as production, so anything you build here promotes by swapping a token.

Export it so the next commands stay clean:

export ACCESS_TOKEN="<your sandbox token>"
export PAPREL_API_BASE="https://api-sandbox.paprel.com"

2. Post a balanced journal (2 min)

A journal is a set of lines whose debits and credits must balance before it ever reaches the ledger. Here we record $100 of revenue — debit Cash (1010), credit Revenue (4000):

curl "$PAPREL_API_BASE/v1/accounting/journals" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "content-type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "currency": "USD",
    "date": "2026-06-27",
    "description": "First journal",
    "lines": [
      { "account_code": "1010", "debit":  "100.00" },
      { "account_code": "4000", "credit": "100.00" }
    ],
    "posted": true
  }'

You get back the created journal with an id, an identifier, and is_posted: true. If debits and credits don't balance, the API rejects it — the ledger never drifts.

3. Read it back (1 min)

Confirm the entry is in the ledger of record:

curl "$PAPREL_API_BASE/v1/accounting/journals" \
  -H "authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN"

Your journal is there, immutable and auditable. That's the whole loop: product event → balanced journal → system of record you can report on.

What just happened

You posted a GAAP-grade double-entry entry over plain REST.
It was validated before it hit the ledger — unbalanced entries are rejected, not silently corrected.
It's now part of an append-only, exportable audit trail.

Next steps

Go deeper: Build Embedded Accounting in 20 Minutes — company, chart of accounts, invoicing, payments, and a live P&L.
Browse the surface: the API reference documents all 159 endpoints.
Production signing: production requests add an x-data-signature header — see authentication & tokens.
Ship faster: use the TypeScript SDK instead of raw curl (see the SDK README in the repo).