Don't understand imbalance

[Doug Laidlaw]

On Saturday 22 November 2008 7:28:14 am Doug Laidlaw wrote:
> On Saturday 22 November 2008 7:05:14 am Elizabeth Dodd wrote:
> > On Sat, 22 Nov 2008, Harold wrote:
> > > Description                Account               Deposit         
> > > Withdrawal credit
> > > card                                                                   
> > >   366.90 health ins                        292.40
> > > books                                 12.00 medical
> > > costs                    62.50 bank
> > > account                                             366.90
> > >
> > > Which 366.90 is the one not needed? Hope this comes thru sort of in the
> > > columns as I intended.
> >
> > all of those lines should be there.
> > (ignoring the other comments on how your books are organised)
> > so this is not the 'imbalance problem'
> > i would delete and try again.
>
> I would defer to you, Elizabeth, but on the example (the columns got out of
> sync in your reply) I see a credit card entry and a bank account entry both
> on the RH side.  Only one can be right.  Assuming that it is a charge to
> the credit card, it didn't affect the bank balance as well.  That is the
> line that should be deleted.
>
> Doug.
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As usual, I didn't read the thread from the beginning.

What is really happening is this:

Harold gets a credit card statement.  He should enter that up under Credit 
Card as 

Debits:
Health Ins:				$292.40
Books					    12.00
Medical Costs				    62.50

Credit entry for the total to balance: $366.90

THEN pay the balance out of the bank account:
Debit Credit Card (reduces the liability)		$366.90
Credit Bank account (reduces the asset)			$366.90

If Harold wants to keep doing it his way, leave the credit card account right 
out of it. Just debit each expense account, and credit Bank.  But the first 
way is more "correct," I think.  It follows the rule of entering up 
everything from your bank statements before bringing down a balance to pay.

HTH,

Doug.