Don't understand imbalance

[Harold]

Thanks Doug. I tend to get confused (I know I shouldn't but I do) when people use debit and credit. I understand it better when I can see whether it is added to or taken away. If I take the money away from my checking and send it to the credit card company and at the same time the splits are added to the expense for those accounts, then that makes sense to me. Gosh, I can't imagine all of this not being confusing to someone else. 

Thanks everyone. I will delete and re-enter (as I have already posted) and will post back the result.

Harold

--- On Fri, 11/21/08, Doug Laidlaw <laidlaws at hotkey.net.au> wrote:
From: Doug Laidlaw <laidlaws at hotkey.net.au>
Subject: Re: Don't understand imbalance
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Date: Friday, November 21, 2008, 2:49 PM

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.
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