Confused by "Reverse"

[Adrien Monteleone]

> On Feb 24, 2018, at 6:51 PM, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> On 2018-02-24 14:09, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> Set that preference for Reverse Balanced Accounts to ‘credit’.
> 
> Yes, that's what I did. As I said, it fixed the Balance Sheet, but it
> broke the General Ledger.

If you mean the General Ledger register under Tools menu, mine looks just fine - everything is positive as I expect it to be.

If you mean the General Ledger Report under the Assets & Liabilities reports menu, there’s a report specific option to reverse the sign for Credit Accounts (as well as Income/Expense) just for that report, but that only seems to work for the final total for each account, not the running balances.

> 
> BTW, why should we have to set "Reverse Credit Accounts" to get a report
> such as Balance Sheet NOT to reverse them? It seems something is
> backward there.

You don’t. The ‘normal balance’ of Credit Accounts is negative. (Liabilities, Equity & Revenue) If you don’t set that option, they show up as negative (individually) on the Balance Sheet. If you want to Reverse Balance those accounts, then set the option, and they’ll show up as positive. (the opposite, or reverse of their ‘normal’ balance)

> 
>> That’s the way I have mine set and every account with a ‘normal’ balance is positive. Only contra-balanced accounts show negative.
> 
> Not in General Ledger.  (I looked at General Journal, but I really
> loathe the format, and since it doesn't have most options I can't fix it.)

As noted above, for that report, the total should have the correct sign, though the running balance amounts will always be negative. (not sure why that is) So with the setting set to ‘none’ you’d have a negative credit account balance under a normal circumstance. (that is, Liabilities, Equity & Revenue) But if you choose to reverse that balance, those will all show as positive.

Also, don’t forget to copy the list on all replies.

Regards,
Adrien

> 
>>> On Feb 24, 2018, at 11:36 AM, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Using 2.6.18.
>>> 
>>> I want credit balances to be positive in liabilities, equities, and
>>> income, and debit balances to be positive in assets and expenses. I'd
>>> think this was standard, but I can't find any way to have it in both the
>>> Assets & Liabilities » Balance Sheet report and the Assets & Liabilities
>>> » General Ledger report. (The latter appears on a tab called Transaction
>>> Report.)
>>> 
>>> In Edit » Preferences » Accounts, I set "Reverse Balanced Accounts" to
>>> None, but then all my credit accounts we backwards in the Balance Sheet.
>>> (Exception: Retained Earnings is not backwards.) There's no "Reverse"
>>> option in Edit » Report Options, so I figure I must be misunderstanding
>>> the setting in Edit » Preferences » Accounts, and change it to Credit
>>> Accounts. That fixes the Balance Sheet, but now the amounts are
>>> backwards in credit accounts in the General Ledger report (though the
>>> totals of credit accounts in that report are not backwards). There's no
>>> reversing option for that report either.
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> Stan Brown
> Tompkins County, New York, USA
> http://BrownMath.com
> http://OakRoadSystems.com



Regards,
Adrien