Templates

Transaction Ledger

Data Contract Template

Ensure transactional ledger data is fresh, complete, and reliable before it’s used for financial reporting, reconciliation, and downstream systems.

Data contract description

This data contract enforces schema stability, a 24-hour freshness SLA, and the presence of required transaction identifiers, account references, and timestamps. It prevents missing, duplicate, or invalid records, validates controlled formats such as currencies and transaction types, and applies core financial consistency rules on transaction amounts and statuses. Together, these checks help ensure the ledger remains accurate, auditable, and safe to use for balances, regulatory reporting, analytics, and customer-facing applications.

Dataset

Defines the dataset this contract applies to, including its source and scope. This is the single point of reference for what data is being validated and protected.

Dataset checks

Validations that apply to the dataset as a whole, including schema stability, data freshness, and overall structural enforcement. This contract includes a schema check to ensure any changes to the dataset structure are detected early. It also defines a freshness check that verifies the data is no more than 24 hours old, based on the created_at timestamp.

Column checks

This contract enforces that core identifiers such as transaction ID, account ID, customer ID, and timestamps are always present and valid. It applies uniqueness constraints to transaction IDs, validates numeric integrity and sign conventions for transaction amounts, restricts currencies and transaction types to controlled sets, and enforces allowed values for transaction statuses. Optional reference fields are guarded with length and format constraints to prevent malformed or unusable values.

finance_transactions_data_contract.yml

dataset

checks:
  - schema:
      allow_extra_columns: false
      allow_other_column_order: false
  - row_count:
      threshold:
        must_be_greater_than: 0
  - freshness:
      column: transaction_timestamp
      threshold:
        unit: hour
        must_be_less_than_or_equal: 24
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Transaction timestamp must not be in the future"
      qualifier: ts_not_future
      expression: transaction_timestamp > ${soda.NOW}
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Amount sign must match transaction_type (DEBIT negative, CREDIT positive)"
      qualifier: amount_sign_by_type
      expression: >
        (transaction_type = 'DEBIT' AND amount >= 0)
        OR (transaction_type = 'CREDIT' AND amount <= 0)

columns:
  - name: transaction_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - duplicate:
      - invalid:
          name: "transaction_id must be a UUID"
          valid_format:
            name: UUID
            regex: "^[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}$"
  - name: account_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "account_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: customer_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "customer_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: transaction_timestamp
    data_type: timestamp
    checks:
      - missing:
  - name: amount
    data_type: decimal
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Amount must not be zero (allow tiny tolerance in case of rare edge cases)"
          invalid_values: [0]
          threshold:
            metric: percent
            must_be_less_than: 0.1
  - name: currency
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Currency must be ISO-4217-like (3 uppercase letters)"
          valid_format:
            name: ISO-4217 code
            regex: "^[A-Z]{3}$"
  - name: transaction_type
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed transaction types"
          valid_values:
            - DEBIT
            - CREDIT
            - TRANSFER
            - FEE
            - REVERSAL
            - ADJUSTMENT
  - name: status
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed statuses"
          valid_values:
            - PENDING
            - POSTED
            - REVERSED
            - FAILED
            - CANCELLED
  - name: reference_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - invalid:
          name: "reference_id length guardrail"
          valid_max_length: 128

Data contract description

Dataset

Defines the dataset this contract applies to, including its source and scope. This is the single point of reference for what data is being validated and protected.

Dataset checks

Column checks

finance_transactions_data_contract.yml

dataset

checks:
  - schema:
      allow_extra_columns: false
      allow_other_column_order: false
  - row_count:
      threshold:
        must_be_greater_than: 0
  - freshness:
      column: transaction_timestamp
      threshold:
        unit: hour
        must_be_less_than_or_equal: 24
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Transaction timestamp must not be in the future"
      qualifier: ts_not_future
      expression: transaction_timestamp > ${soda.NOW}
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Amount sign must match transaction_type (DEBIT negative, CREDIT positive)"
      qualifier: amount_sign_by_type
      expression: >
        (transaction_type = 'DEBIT' AND amount >= 0)
        OR (transaction_type = 'CREDIT' AND amount <= 0)

columns:
  - name: transaction_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - duplicate:
      - invalid:
          name: "transaction_id must be a UUID"
          valid_format:
            name: UUID
            regex: "^[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}$"
  - name: account_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "account_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: customer_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "customer_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: transaction_timestamp
    data_type: timestamp
    checks:
      - missing:
  - name: amount
    data_type: decimal
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Amount must not be zero (allow tiny tolerance in case of rare edge cases)"
          invalid_values: [0]
          threshold:
            metric: percent
            must_be_less_than: 0.1
  - name: currency
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Currency must be ISO-4217-like (3 uppercase letters)"
          valid_format:
            name: ISO-4217 code
            regex: "^[A-Z]{3}$"
  - name: transaction_type
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed transaction types"
          valid_values:
            - DEBIT
            - CREDIT
            - TRANSFER
            - FEE
            - REVERSAL
            - ADJUSTMENT
  - name: status
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed statuses"
          valid_values:
            - PENDING
            - POSTED
            - REVERSED
            - FAILED
            - CANCELLED
  - name: reference_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - invalid:
          name: "reference_id length guardrail"
          valid_max_length: 128

Data contract description

finance_transactions_data_contract.yml

dataset

checks:
  - schema:
      allow_extra_columns: false
      allow_other_column_order: false
  - row_count:
      threshold:
        must_be_greater_than: 0
  - freshness:
      column: transaction_timestamp
      threshold:
        unit: hour
        must_be_less_than_or_equal: 24
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Transaction timestamp must not be in the future"
      qualifier: ts_not_future
      expression: transaction_timestamp > ${soda.NOW}
  - failed_rows:
      name: "Amount sign must match transaction_type (DEBIT negative, CREDIT positive)"
      qualifier: amount_sign_by_type
      expression: >
        (transaction_type = 'DEBIT' AND amount >= 0)
        OR (transaction_type = 'CREDIT' AND amount <= 0)

columns:
  - name: transaction_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - duplicate:
      - invalid:
          name: "transaction_id must be a UUID"
          valid_format:
            name: UUID
            regex: "^[0-9a-fA-F]{8}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{4}-[0-9a-fA-F]{12}$"
  - name: account_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "account_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: customer_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "customer_id must be non-empty and sane length"
          valid_min_length: 1
          valid_max_length: 64
  - name: transaction_timestamp
    data_type: timestamp
    checks:
      - missing:
  - name: amount
    data_type: decimal
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Amount must not be zero (allow tiny tolerance in case of rare edge cases)"
          invalid_values: [0]
          threshold:
            metric: percent
            must_be_less_than: 0.1
  - name: currency
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Currency must be ISO-4217-like (3 uppercase letters)"
          valid_format:
            name: ISO-4217 code
            regex: "^[A-Z]{3}$"
  - name: transaction_type
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed transaction types"
          valid_values:
            - DEBIT
            - CREDIT
            - TRANSFER
            - FEE
            - REVERSAL
            - ADJUSTMENT
  - name: status
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - missing:
      - invalid:
          name: "Allowed statuses"
          valid_values:
            - PENDING
            - POSTED
            - REVERSED
            - FAILED
            - CANCELLED
  - name: reference_id
    data_type: varchar
    checks:
      - invalid:
          name: "reference_id length guardrail"
          valid_max_length: 128

How to Enforce Data Contracts with Soda

Embed data quality through data contracts at any point in your pipeline.

# pip install soda-{data source} for other data sources

pip install soda-postgress

# verify the contract locally against a data source

soda contract verify -c contract.yml -ds ds_config.yml

# publish and schedule the contract with Soda Cloud

soda contract publish -c contract.yml -sc sc_config.yml

Check out the CLI documentation to learn more.

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Automatically write and publish data contracts using Soda's AI-powered data contract copilot.

Make data contracts work in production

Business knows what good data looks like. Engineering knows how to deliver it at scale. Soda unites both, turning governance expectations into executable contracts.

Make data contracts work in production

Business knows what good data looks like. Engineering knows how to deliver it at scale. Soda unites both, turning governance expectations into executable contracts.

Make data contracts work in production

Business knows what good data looks like. Engineering knows how to deliver it at scale. Soda unites both, turning governance expectations into executable contracts.

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