[GNC] credit account negative balance increases with payment

[Murugan Muruganandam]

Can you please explain what  account type you have selected to create this credit card account?  your charges are reducing your outstanding and not the other way around?





Saludos Cordiales


Murugan

________________________________
From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+m.muruganandam=hotmail.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of Custom Shots <customshots at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, March 6, 2023 1:09 PM
To: john <jralls at ceridwen.us>
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] credit account negative balance increases with payment

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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