Few things are more confusing than the definition of a legal entity in the world of financial programming. If you get this one wrong it means that you basically don’t know your shit 🤣.

How many of you think that a legal entity means a business? Please, reach out to me and confess your sins 😇, I guarantee that you are not alone!

It took me a few years to figure this out and each time I hear a developer talking about legal entities as being equivalent to a business I get a bad taste in my mouth and I want to set things straight 🤬.

Why on earth would you think that an individual/natural person/human is not legal and not an entity? OMG, don’t get me started.

A legal entity is “IT”
A legal entity can be any business, organization or individual that must fulfill legal responsibilities per local, state, and federal governing authorities.

So, this means that a business is a type of legal entity, an individual is a type of legal entity and so on.

A business can have various forms of legal structures like Corporation, Partnership etc. but they are all legal entities.

I am a legal entity and you are a legal entity.

Wise up in your data model
What I am saying is, stop making legal entities into a separate entity compared to a person in your data models. Start with the legal entity as an entity and then split it up with a type called business or company and then another type called natural person or individual or just person, it is up to you, but PLEASE stop messing up the legal entity itself!

Rant out from the #CodeCave