GnuCash account API (vs. online banking)

[Bill Gribble]

On 12 Aug 2001 16:43:20 +0200, Christian Stimming wrote:
> Positive Split values are 'debits' ("Belastung, Soll, Debit") and 
> negative Split values are 'credits' ("Gutschrift, Haben, Kredit"). Ensuring 
> the Splits to 'add up' to zero causes a double-entry accounting system to 
> always balance. [...]

Christian, 

What you're describing above is basically correct, but you might want to
reorder the wording a bit.  The fact that we use positive numbers for
debits and negative numbers for credits is just an implementation
detail; the only thing that matters to an accountant is whether an
amount should be a debit or a credit, and all amounts are positive. 

I suggest this rewording: 

  Debits are denoted by positive split values, and credits are denoted 
  by negative split values.  The rules of double entry accounting 
  require that the sum of debits in a transaction equal the sum of the 
  credits; with our representation, we can check this condition by
  comparing an arithmetic sum of the split values to 0.

> That's how GnuCash uses accounts. Now we can continue the discussion on how 
> an online banking API should look like.

Could you include the gnucash-devel list in the rest of this discussion?
The development of an online banking API for gnucash will affect more
than just the HBCI module, and I know there are several people on the
list who will have an opinion or two :)

Thanks,
b.g.