Confused by "Reverse"

[Stan Brown]

Adrien, thanks for replying, but I'm talking about a problem in a
report.  Please see below.

-- 
Regards,
Stan Brown
Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com
http://OakRoadSystems.com


On 2018-02-25 02:43, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> 
> 
>> 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.

No, I don't mean that.  I know there are multiple things with similar
names, so I wrote:

"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."

Everything is fine in the General Ledger _tool_ (at least with respect
to this issue). It's one of those two _reports_ that has the problem.

> 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)

Okay, I understand now, but I definitely did not get that from the
documentation. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the documentation goes the
other way, saying that a credit to a liability account increases the
account balance and a debit reduces the balance. That matches how I
learned it when I worked for an accounting firm.

If it's a programming convenience to have all liability, equity, and
income accounts negative, I guess I can sort of see that. And I can
reverse that in Edit » Preferences, so it's a one-time adjustment. But
then a problem arises when the reports don't follow that.

Something you said earlier made me think you were thinking about
removing the General Ledger report. please don't -- I find it useful and
the General Journal report not so useful, not at this time anyway. I'd
just like to see the General Ledger Report follow the Edit » Preferences
setting for reversing signs of accounts.

>>> 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.


>>>> 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.