Assets with a negative value treated as zero in reports

[David Carlson]

On 5/16/2013 4:55 AM, Colin Bell wrote:
> On 15/05/2013 19:59, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Colin Bell <crb11 at cam.ac.uk> writes:
>>
>>> When I do an Account Summary report, any asset I have with a negative
>>> value (such as an overdrawn bank account) is treated as having zero
>>> value. This seems to apply to all the Asset and Liability reports.
>>>
>>> I assume this behaviour is by design, although it seems broken to me.
>>>
>>> Is there an option to turn this off and get a correct balance sheet
>>> for my accounts?
>>
>> What does it mean to have a "Negative Asset"?  How can you have negative
>> cash in your wallet?  How could you have negative money in your checking
>> account?  And no, "overdraft" doesn't count, because that's yet another
>> account that would be a Liability that gets tied to your checking
>> account.
>>
>> If the asset account is negative then you should think about how to
>> record it as a Liability.
>
> I assume this means the answer to my question is "no".
>
> What I have is categories in my accounts which can either be an asset
> or a liability at different times. Buddha Buck gives a good example,
> an overdrawn bank account is another. A third one is that I lend my
> car to a work colleague, and want to record how much money she owes me
> currently. Most of the time this is positive, but sometimes negative
> (if she has filled up with petrol currently).
>
> I _could_ create duplicate Asset and Liability accounts to cover all
> these cases, and would have to if I was accounting to professional
> standards I assume, but for the purpose of my household accounts this
> is overkill and risks mistakes.
>
> Gnucash in any case works perfectly happily with negative assets
> except when you want to generate reports. I've been using it happily
> for years - but now I'm getting married and combining accounts with my
> fiancee, I need to start printing off reports for her, which I haven't
> done before.
>
> If we weren't meant to have negative assets, the program should
> prevent me from letting an Asset account go negative (or at least warn
> me!) and the documentation should make it clearer as well.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Colin
>
>
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If I understand this thread correctly, there can be many other cases,
and I have not seen an authoritative suggestion about how average users
could handle them. 

I would not want to have contra-accounts if that mechanism is supposed
to be reserved for year-end closing, for example.

Pre-paid debit cards and merchandiser loyalty cards might cross the line
into negative territory now and then, if one tries to track them.  A lot
of utilities, particularly communications and information providers, ask
the user to pre-pay their "subscription" anywhere from a month to years
in advance.  Yet these 'subscriptions" can go into arrears before they
are renewed.  Or the magazine or newspaper can go out of print.

Also, with investments there are sometimes (alas) negative capital gains.

Many of these examples are too small for a normal user to bother with
trying to track, but some can result in a major tax event.

Back to the original question, I would certainly not want "negative"
balances to be ignored in any report, if they are legitimate items that
impact net worth or equity balance.  Is it sufficient to use red ink? 
Chart reports are the ones that really do not behave well, if the origin
is not allowed to float.
Or do we really need corresponding liability and expense accounts for
those "negative" assets and "negative" incomes resp.?

David C