John Hasler wrote:
>
> Herbert Thoma writes:
> > I just updated CVS and suddenly my assets were negative.
>
> Do you mean the assets shown in the lower right of the main window? This
> should be sign-reversed along with asset accounts, IMHO.
>
> > I use reverse Income & Expense accounts.
>
> You should reverse either debit accounts (my recommendation) or none.
> Maybe someday you will be able to select sign reversal account by account,
> or the need for sign reversal will go away entirely.
>
> > 1. positive (black) balances are GOOD,
> > negative (red) balances are BAD.
>
> Positive balances are normal. Negative ones are not. The authors have
> tried to arrange things so that when accounts have their normal balances
> they will be positive. That is what "sign reversal" is about. As to good
> and bad, well, liability accounts normally have positive balances, but that
> doesn't make them good.
I don't think so. A positive balance shows me that I own something
and a negative balance shows me that I owe something to someone.
Example: I raise a credit at my bank: I open a liability account
"credit" and transfer the money from this liability account to a
bank account. This way I get a positive balance in my bank account
to pay my bills with and a negative balance in the liability account
to reflect the fact that I owe this money to the bank and the fact
that this reduces my net worth. When I pay back the credit, then
I transfer money from the bank account to the liability account.
> > 2. I have positive assets (bank + cash + stock) - (liability + credit
> > card)...
>
> That is not assets, that's (unadjusted) net worth. Your assets are bank +
> cash + stock.
OK, you are right, it's net worth. The label is wrong.
> > ...and I want this value printed positive (black)
>
> Where is it printed? I'm not sure what value you mean.
This is the lower right corner.
> > 3. I like Income to be displayed positive...
>
> Then you don't want it sign-reversed, as income accounts normally have
> credit balances, and gnucash represents credits as positive numbers.
>
> > ...and Expense to be displayed negative,....
>
> The you don't want it sign-reversed either, since gnucash uses negative
> numbers for debits and expense accounts normally have debit balances. I'd
> recommend against this, though. It is best to arrange for all normal
> balances to be positive.
Of course I want it sign reversed: When I get an Income then I do a transfer
FROM an income account TO a bank account, so the income account gets more
negative and the bank account gets more positive. The same with an Expense.
Transfer FROM bank TO expense. Bank acount balance lowers, expense account
balance gets higher. This way income accounts have negative balances and
expense accounts have positive balances. This is perfectly sensible for
double entry because everything adds up to zero. Only for convenience I like
it displayed sign reversed.
> > But if I had more Income than Expense, I want this profit to be displayed
> > positive.
>
> I assume that you are referring to the 'Profits' amount in the lower right
> of the main window? This isn't really profits, but in any case if it was
> just income plus expense it would normally be positive, since income
> accounts normally have credit balances (internally positive) and expense
> accounts normally have debit (internally negative) balances. A look at the
> source, however, reveals that it is the negative of income plus expense.
> This is a bug, IMHO.
No, see above. Income accounts negative, expense positive.
Herbert.
--
Herbert Thoma
FhG-IIS A, Studio Department
Am Weichselgarten3, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
Phone: +49-9131-776-323
Fax: +49-9131-776-399
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
www: http://www.iis.fhg.de/
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