debits, credits and reversals.

[Derek Atkins]

cscott at cix.compulink.co.uk (Colin Scott) writes:

>>From time to time I need to reverse a transaction, for a number of 
> possible reasons.   Gnucash insists that to make the reversing transaction 
> I must use a debit amount to replace the credit, and a credit amount to 
> replace the debit.  So far so good.  However, It seems to me that the 
> purpose of the transaction it would be clearer if I were able to reverse 
> the sign of the values rather than their colums - ie, enter a negative 
> credit and a negative debit instead of a debit and a credit.
>
> Is there some deep philosophical (or book-keeping!) reason why this is so, 
> and that negative values are not permitted except as balances?  I have 
> certainly been able to use negatives in other accounting systems I have 
> used ...

Yes.  Internally GnuCash does not have a separate "debit" or "credit"
value.  It has a single "amount" which is positive or negative, and that
turns into the appropriate debit or credit (in the appropriate left or
right column) depending on the account type and +/- sign of the amount.

That's why you cannot have a "negative debit" (or neg-credit) -- gnucash
does not keep track of in which column you entered your number.  The
column just applies a default +/- value to the "amount".

Hope this helps,

> Colin

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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