Reconciling an account

[Adrien Monteleone]

From the perspective of the credit card account register, ‘decrease’ for the bank split is incorrect as well.

Look at your bank register. It should be labeled Tot Deposit/Tot Withdraw. (a cash account would say ‘Tot Receive/Tot Spend’ which is much easier to follow, a basic asset account will say Tot Increase/Tot Decrease)

For that payment transaction to the credit card account, you’d have an entry as Tot Deposit/Increase instead of Tot Withdrawal/Decrease, which is of course incorrect.

The transaction is backwards.

It might help to only enter payments from an asset account, or to use the transfer button. (which clearly marks that funds will come ‘from’ one account and ‘to’ another)

In the bank account register the transaction should look like this:

Account				Tot Deposit/Increase	Tot Withdraw/Decrease
=======				====================	=====================
Liabilities:Credit Card		$100
Assets:Checking						$100


In the credit card register the transaction should look like this:

Account				Tot Payment/Decrease	Tot Charge/Increase
=======				====================	=====================
Liabilities:Credit Card		$100
Assets:Checking						$100


What is confusing here is that Decrease/Increase are NOT with respect to each split but ONLY with respect to the account register you are viewing. Really, this is a good example why informal labels are more confusing sometimes than Debit/Credit.

You might find it easier to change the credit card account type from just a liability account to a credit card type account. (highlight the account in the tree, click the Edit button, then click the ‘Credit Card’ label in the Account Type pane, and save) The same goes for your bank account. (there’s a type just for that)

Now your labels for the credit card account will be Tot Payment/Tot Charge. (and bank will be Tot Deposit/Tot Withdrawal)

That will still look odd for the checking account split from inside the credit card register, but it might help.

If you keep straight what is a normal credit and normal debit account, the formal labels are much easier to follow in my opinion.

-Adrien

> On Jun 13, 2017, at 12:14 PM, EngineInstitute <info at chinablueart.com> wrote:
> 
> Maf,
> Yes it is confusing.
> Ok got 2.6.15
> In the accounts tree the credit card account is listed directly under
> Liabilities. When looking at the preferences of this account under
> Edit/Preferences/Accounts it is listed under Reverse Balance Accounts as a
> Credit account. This category I understand is a for credit cards (vs Income
> and expense).  Formal label accounting is off. On the accounting page for
> the credit card headers for columns read from left to right beginning with
> Transfer: R, Decrease, Increase, Balance.
> When a credit card payment is made from the checking account it is reflected
> as decrease on the bank side (correct) and an increase on the credit card
> side (wrong).
> I hope this clarifies this problem.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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