What Revealed Plots
Revealed begins with the trial balance—the foundational structure of double-entry accounting. Every reported financial statement ultimately originates from trial balance accounts. Revealed reorganizes those relationships into a visual structure that can be perceived as a whole rather than read line by line.
Trial Balance Foundation
The trial balance contains the balances of assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, and expenses. These categories form the basis of Revealed's geometry.
The balance sheet is represented in the inner structure, where assets appear on one side and liabilities and equity appear on the other, preserving the accounting relationship:
Assets = Liabilities + Equity
The relative proportions of these elements determine the shape of the balance-sheet core.
Income Statement Structure
Revenue, expenses, and net income (or loss) are derived from the trial balance and form a surrounding layer.
This layer represents operating activity during the period. Revenue occupies one half of the ring, while expenses and net income share the other half, making profitability immediately visible as a structural feature.
Scale and Diameter
Traditional financial statements communicate scale through numbers. Revealed uses diameter as a visual variable. As total assets increase, the diameter expands, allowing differences in company size and growth to be perceived immediately.
Time and Market Value
Each annual period is represented as a separate structural slice. Multiple periods are stacked through depth, allowing changes in financial structure to be viewed over time.
An outer shell represents market value, connecting reported accounting information with the market's evolving assessment of the company.
Construction Principles
Revealed follows several design principles:
- Based on the trial balance and double-entry accounting
- Preserves the accounting equation
- Uses diameter to represent scale
- Uses radial layers to separate financial statement components
- Uses depth to represent time
- Uses outer shells to represent market value
The result is a structural representation of a company that can be compared across periods and across organizations.