Minus value (in red) showing in Accounts payable.

[Adrien Monteleone]

Check the Preferences > Accounts > Reverse Balance Accounts setting.

If it is set to Income & Expense, or None, then the normal balance for A/P will be negative. If you set it to Credit Accounts, it will be positive.

A/P normally has a credit balance if you owe money and a debit balance if a creditor owes you.

Since you indicated other accounts have the signs you expected them to, my inclination is that you have this set to ‘Income & Expense’ which produces a positive sign for every account except Expense, Liabilities, and Equity.

I keep mine set to ‘Credit Accounts.’ This produces a positive balance for everything except contra-accounts which of course should always be the opposite sign of the regular accounts for their type.

If you indeed have your preference set to Credit Accounts as well, then your transactions may not be entered correctly.

Are you using the business features? A/P and A/R are special accounts and should generally never be edited manually, but only altered by entering invoices/bills and payments against those invoices/bills using the business features.

Hope that helps,

Adrien


> From: sleeping cat <sleepingcat at hotmail.co.uk <mailto:sleepingcat at hotmail.co.uk>>
> Subject: Minus value (in red) showing in Accounts payable.
> Date: March 20, 2017 at 4:54:21 PM CDT
> To: gnucash-devel at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-devel at gnucash.org>
> 
> Am 20.03.2017 um 22:54 schrieb sleeping cat:
> Hello all,
> I have been using Gnu Cash for about 2 months now and very slowly getting my
> way clear to use the many features.
> 
> I use it for a small business to produce invoices and just to keep my eye on
> cash flow, I also use it to pay staff their expences my main payroll is done
> off site with my accountant.
> 
> I have Gnu Cash setup for business customers, staff, etc but I have started
> to notice that in the "accounts" tab the "accounts payable" has started to
> show a minus value in red £-960. Now I am still new to Gnu Cash and all the
> other figures seem to add up and look like I would expect them, payments
> from customers, invoices waitng to be paid etc, my wife and I have read the
> documentation and we can't seem to figure out why we are showing a minus
> value.
> 
> Can anyone throw some light on this problem or is it so obvious I can't see
> the wood for the trees. Help Please.