[GNC] credit account negative balance increases with payment

[Custom Shots]

John Ralls,
In GnuCash Preferences: Accounts: Reverse Balance Accounts: Credit Accounts
is selected. That shows amounts owed as negative numbers.
After adjusting settings as others have suggested, I have seen another
anomaly. This is happening with only one credit account. I have four credit
accounts. The other three are working properly. This one in question is the
only one that is incorrect. I am attaching a screenshot of the register as
it is after changing settings. Like this or with reverse balance accounts
credit selected the balance should go down after a payment. It doesn't it
goes up. Even with negative numbers, the negative balance owed goes up
meaning I owe more after a payment.

On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 10:45 AM john <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:

>
>
> > On Mar 5, 2023, at 7:03 AM, Michael or Penny Novack <
> stepbystepfarm at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > On 3/4/2023 1:26 PM, Custom Shots wrote:
> >> I just noticed this. Something has changed. I keep 30 day backups and
> this
> >> has been going on in all my backups. When I add a payment transaction
> to my
> >> credit card account the negative balance increases instead of
> decreasing.
> >> Any clues to what is happening? I am using GnuCash Version: 4.8 Build
> ID:
> >> 4.8a+(2021-09-28) on Ubuntu 2022.04.2. The second half of the double
> entry
> >> transaction, the withdrawal from my checking account, works correctly.
> >
> > Are we confusing you?
> >
> > Let's go back to the beginning (and that is where the mistake was)
> >
> > What are you saying when you say "the credit card balance is negative"?
> What are you saying when you say "I owe you ten dollars" vs "I owe you
> NEGATIVE ten dollars".
> >
> > The credit card account is a liability. If it INCREASES it means you owe
> more. If it decreases it means you owe less. So the transactions are doing
> the right thing. Your problem was with the initial balance. IF you started
> out owing NEGATIVE five hundred dollars and you made a payment of two
> hundred dollars the balance should be negative seven hundred dollars. In
> other words, your transactions were doing the right thing but your initial
> balance was on the wrong side of the ledger.
> >
> > OK, you are where you are, how to correct your books. You apparently
> started your books with an amount for the credit card account of some
> negative amount X. So now you need to enter a correction transaction in the
> amount of 2X. The debit side would be starting equity and the credit side
> your credit card account. You are reducing your equity by 2X because you
> initially overstated it by X and you did owe X.
>
> Michael,
>
> Careful: The representation of the balance in the register depends on
> Preferences>Accounts>Reversed Balance Accounts. What you say is correct if
> the default Credit Accounts is selected, but if either of the others is
> selected then a credit card (or any other liability and equity) register
> will show a negative balance when used in the normal way.
>
> Custom Shots,
>
> Please tell us what you have set for that preference.
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
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