OPENING balances

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Joan and Barrie Hallett <hallettb at magma.ca> writes:

> The Problem: The accounts with opening balances, some assets some
> liabilities, the net being more liabilities than assets all appear to
> configured OK. BUT the account "Open balances" shows positive assets
> rather than negative. Played around with them a few times I still get
> wrong sign.
>
> I am using Mac OS 1.7.2 and GNUcash 2.4.8 and have used Quicken for
> many many years but it does not work on OS Tiger. GNUcash looks like a
> good replacement but I think I am missing or not understanding
> something. Web based manual seems to apply to an earlier version of
> GNUcash at least some of the time.
>
> PS I am well into my 70s so some of the modern terminology catches me out.

Are you sure what you're seeing isn't that GnuCash will sign-reverse
some accounts?  For example, when you Credit Income and Debit Cash, both
accounts increase.  The reasoning is that some accounts are "naturally
negative" so they get sign reversed to make it more understandable to
the average human.  Another example is a credit card account -- where
charges on the card "increase" the balance and payments "decrease" the
balance.

In the case of Equity accounts, it is also sign reversed, so increasing
your Asset will increase your Equity.

If you want to see "true" numbers you can go into Edit -> Preferences
and change which account types have sign reversal.

> 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
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available