[Glossary](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary) Parent transaction # What is a parent transaction? Parent transaction A parent transaction is the earlier record that a later record points to. Ledgers that do not edit history create a new row for each new state. The parent field is the link. Follow it and you get the lineage of a transfer. ## How does a parent transaction work? The first record you create has no parent. Each later state stores the id of the record that produced it. A queued transfer is the parent of the applied one. An inflight transfer is the parent of the commit or the void. A refund points at the original applied transfer. Bulk, split, and scheduled work use the same link. The batch or the schedule is the parent. Each child is a real transaction you can query on its own. ## Why not update the same row? If you overwrite status on one row, you lose the history of how the transfer got there. A parent chain keeps every state. You can answer “what was queued,” “what was held,” and “what was applied” without a separate audit table. ## Parent transaction vs reference A reference is your idempotency key. A parent is the ledger’s link between states. You choose the reference. The ledger writes the parent. You need both. The reference stops a double submit. The parent reconstructs the path. In Blnk every new state stores parent\_transaction. Search by that field to find the next record after a queued or inflight id. Refunds, splits, and schedules use the same chain. See [parent transactions](https://docs.blnkfinance.com/transactions/parent-transactions). Related terms - [Transaction](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/transaction) - [Inflight](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/inflight) - [Refund](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/refund) - [Transaction lifecycle](https://blnkfinance.com/glossary/transaction-lifecycle)