[GNC] Credits and Debits

[John Clark]

> On Apr 15, 2019, at 11:17 PM, AEG via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> The concept of Credits and Debits confuses most newcomers to GnuCash (it did
> me), so I devised a way to remember which goes where.
> Given that transactions involve the movement of money from one account to
> another...
> 
> (C)redits belong to the (C)ontributing accounts. 
> (D)ebits belong to the (D)estination accounts.
> 
> It has always worked for me.

The labels at the top of my GNC transaction pages are labeled ‘Deposit’ and “Withdrawal”. Money comes into the ‘deposit’ column, money ‘disappears’ in the ‘withdrawal’ column.

When I go to the bank I ‘deposit’ money in my account there, when I withdraw money from there, it disappears from my bank account.

I don’t need to change my sense of the ‘names’ depending on the account.

In the case of the credit card accounts, there are Payments (left column, putting money in) and Charges( taking money out).

Again the terms all in terms of my view, which is the important view for ‘my books’. 

How a bank or a credit card wants to view things, may be different or the columns reversed etc, but that need not be my view. And even if the credit card company is trying to
sock me for ‘charges’ I didn’t make… or the bank has ‘lost’ money out of my account, they need to explain it in terms of ‘my’ view.

I’m pretty thankful GNC did not use ‘debit/credit’ terms and the attendant confusion of contextual ‘meaning’, which may be exactly opposite their Latin root meanings, at least from
my point of view.