In my scheme, 1 always means DR and -1 always means CR. I use this, rather than the strings DR/CR, so the database can more easily do arithmetic to calculate ba

In my scheme, 1 always means DR and -1 always means CR. I use this, rather than the strings DR/CR, so the database can more easily do arithmetic to calculate balances. In order to do that arithmetic, we multiply the account's normal (again, 1 or -1) by the direction (1, -1) to determine if the amount represents an increase or decrease.