[GNC] Confusing and inconsistent headers in transaction entry and report forms

[Adrien Monteleone]

The report is correct.

Your entry is backwards.

Open your Checking register.

Then View > Transaction Journal (now you see all splits for all 
transactions, nothing hidden)

This particular transaction should be:

dr. Checking
cr. Donations

That will increase *both* the amount in your checking account, and the 
revenue received as donations.

Note, 'credit' increases Income, Liabilities, & Equity accounts; 'debit' 
increases Assets & Expenses.

Preferences > Accounts > Reverse balanced accounts usually defaults to 
'Credit Accounts' to reflect the above.

If you want to see Credit accounts as normally negative instead of 
positive, change this setting. But I'd recommend leaving it as is for 
now till you get the hang of double-entry and the Accounting Equation. 
(and you might opt to never change it, nothing wrong with that)

An easy way to 'flip' a transaction is to simply put negative signs in 
front of the amounts. GnuCash will move them from debit to credit and 
vice versa. (all amounts in a register are positive except Balance which 
may be negative)

The idea with double entry is not necessarily to increase *and* decrease 
something in the same transaction, though that can occur.

In this particular case, money is coming in from outside, so both sides 
of the transaction need to increase.

If you were paying down a liability, money going out, then both sides 
would decrease.

It is only when you are moving funds between accounts but not in or out 
of your book that you get both an increase & decrease in the same 
transaction.

*finally, you can see all splits for a single transaction using the View 
 > Auto-Split mode, or if in Basic mode, use the Split button on the 
toolbar. You don't need to leave Transaction Journal mode on unless you 
prefer it. (and there is a preference to set the default view mode for 
all registers)

Regards,
Adrien

On 8/1/22 6:35 PM, Peter S. Shenkin wrote:
> Also, the second part of my question involved the Transaction report. There
> the headings at the top seem backwards. They are labeled Credit and Debit,
> but where I entered a Debit, it appears in the Credit column and vice
> versa.  Any comment on this?