Old Loans and "Retained Earnings"

[Roland Roberts]

>>>>> "David" == David Overton <doverton@bigpond.net.au> writes:

    David> On Thu, Oct 11, 2001 at 12:09:52AM -0400, Roland Roberts wrote:

    >> I'm converting from Quicken to GnuCash 1.4.  I have some old loans
    >> where, in Quicken, they simply had an "initial balance" shown.
    >> Quicken sets this up as going to a "Retained Earnings" asset account.
    [...]

    David> The retained earnings account should have type "Equity"
    David> rather than "Asset".

You're correct and my lack of knowledge about accounting is showing.
GnuCash did, in fact, create an equity account, not an asset account.

But, as I commented in a follow-up to my message, I still don't really
understand this.  The old loans are correctly shown as debits in the
equity account, but the balance shown on the main accounts list is
positive.  Uhm, are "equity" accounts the opposite of "asset"
accounts?

roland
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Roland B. Roberts, PhD                             RL Enterprises
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