Why is my WAGES account going NEGATIVE?

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Why is my WAGES account going NEGATIVE?

Postby Kate » Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:34 am

You need to set your "Wages" account's "type" to "Income" (in Database).

When you do this:

Code: Select all
Code: Select all
Date: 19/01/2010,  From: Wages,   To: bank,   Amount: 123.45 ...


Then Wages will be minus 123.45 - that is "logical".

But these wages really came to you because they are really an income. Income-type accounts always have their balances reversed. This turns -123.45 into +123.45.

Why? This is cheating surely? No! Any transfer is positive and negative depending on viewpoint e.g. "wages" will be negative for the employer whereas the exact same amount will be positive for the employee.

When you set Wages to type Income (in Database) then you are simply changing the viewpoint from employer to employee. No cheating is involved, the amount still flows from Wages to bank.

Another way to look at it is in classical bookkeeping - you have two sides, one is the Income the other is Outgoings, both sides are always positive even though we know that one is actually negative.
Kate
 
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