Herbert Thoma writes:
> 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...
To an accountant or bookkeeper a negative balance in a liability account
means that they own you money (this will happen if you overpay your phone
bill, for example).
> Of course I want it [income] 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.
You don't transfer from an income account to an asset (bank) account. You
record the fact that the transaction resulted in income with a credit to an
income account and record the fact that it resulted in an increase in an
asset with a debit to an asset (bank) account. Income and assets both
increased. I don't think most people want negative income.
> The same with an Expense. Transfer FROM bank TO expense. Bank acount
> balance lowers, expense account balance gets higher.
You don't transfer to an expense account from an asset (bank) account. You
record the fact that the transaction resulted in expense with a debit to an
expense account and record the fact that it resulted in a decrease in an
asset with a credit to an asset (bank) account.
> 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.
With double entry total debits equal total credits. Neither word is a
synonym for 'negative'. Gnucash uses negative numbers for debits
internally (apparently this is about to reverse), but it does so only for
computational convenience. IMHO the only reason negative numbers should
ever appear on the screen is to indicate that something is "backwards", as
when you overpay a bill and consequently have a debit balance in an account
payable. Even this could be avoided by use of the parenthesis favored by
bookkeepers or the canonical debit-credit T account notation.
> Only for convenience I like it displayed sign reversed.
As I understand it the intent of sign reversal was to "correct" the
engine's internal +- convention so as to make all normal balances appear
"normal", i.e. positive.
> No, see above. Income accounts negative, expense positive.
I don't think most people want negative income.
--
John "IANAA" Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hasler)
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI
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