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This is going far beyond my own knowledge. I only use double-entry. Or at least I use a style where everything is a transaction that adds up to zero -- ther

This is going far beyond my own knowledge. I only use double-entry. Or at least I use a style where everything is a transaction that adds up to zero -- there can be more than two accounts in a transaction. I don't even understand single-entry. [UPDATE: I am now pretty sure there is a serious misunderstanding my paragraph above, but think it is more constructive to note it, than to delete it.] My main objection was to making account types so so fundamental. From the POV of my account book "Assets:InTheBank" behaves just like "Liabilities:CreditCard". True, the later balance is almost always negative, but it is the minus sign and not the word "Liabilities" that matters. Similarly for transactions, a plus or a minus in front of a delta is less confusing to me than the equivalent accountant-jargon. But here, for some reason, I have more sympathy for accountants and their jargon.

hosh 8y ago
I see. Thst makes more sense. I took an intro accounting class in a community college as well as microeconomics in high school, so I have an inkling where this stuff comes from. I look askance at stuff like "contra assets" too. But yes: boiled down, those are legacy words indicating positive or negative.
adrianratnapala 8y ago
Let me explain my update from yesterday so it doesn't just hang there as a useless tease. My comment assumed that double-entry accounting meant that every transaction adds up to zero. But cgio links to which claims http://www.ellerman.org/the-math-of-double-entry-bookkeeping-part-i-scalars/ http://www.ellerman.org/the-math-of-double-entry-bookkeeping... that definition is a common misunderstanding. What cgio means by double-entry is adding up debits and credits as separate unsigned numbers, as opposed to a single signed one. The fact that the numbers only ever increase can help you verify the books. Indeed I've experienced the pain of signed numbers first hand when keeping accounts with pen-and-paper. I can't remember how exactly it worked, but it was something to do with how if I had monotonically increasing values, I could have put a strict time bound on where a missing entry had to be.

hosh 8y ago

I see. Thst makes more sense. I took an intro accounting class in a community college as well as microeconomics in high school, so I have an inkling where this stuff comes from. I look askance at stuff like "contra assets" too. But yes: boiled down, those are legacy words indicating positive or negative.

adrianratnapala 8y ago

Let me explain my update from yesterday so it doesn't just hang there as a useless tease. My comment assumed that double-entry accounting meant that every transaction adds up to zero. But cgio links to which claims http://www.ellerman.org/the-math-of-double-entry-bookkeeping-part-i-scalars/ http://www.ellerman.org/the-math-of-double-entry-bookkeeping... that definition is a common misunderstanding. What cgio means by double-entry is adding up debits and credits as separate unsigned numbers, as opposed to a single signed one. The fact that the numbers only ever increase can help you verify the books. Indeed I've experienced the pain of signed numbers first hand when keeping accounts with pen-and-paper. I can't remember how exactly it worked, but it was something to do with how if I had monotonically increasing values, I could have put a strict time bound on where a missing entry had to be.