That's also how I like to think about it, as a kind of checksum mechanism. Double-entry bookkeeping originated in medieval European markets, which were often open-air, noisy, dirty, full of thieves and other dangers. Keeping your records straight in that environment must be a challenge, and having a logic that allows you to catch some mistakes can be a powerful tool in that context.
But there's more to it, eg it allows you to make a distinction between expenses and investments, so it is actually a truly different way to think about your financial situation than eg looking at cash flows only. Spending X on a buying livestock has a different economic meaning than spending X to pay a security guard. There are economic historians who argue that this kind of perspective was an enabler of early capitalism, because it enables people to see that money spent on an investment isn't lost value.
