Usually, income accounts and expense accounts are placed in different top level hierarchies (Income and Expenses, respectively). Rearranging the accounts to segregate these would be a first step to gaining some clarity.
-------- Original Message -------- From: Jim DeLaHunt <list+gnuc...@jdlh.com> Sent: Tue Jun 08 17:23:55 EDT 2021 To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org Subject: Re: [GNC] Large Negative Account Total Jack: On 2021-06-08 14:04, Jack Frillman via gnucash-user wrote: > …The parent account "Investment Misc" is an expense account and is > marked as a place holder account.… > …In my account tabs the "Investment Misc" parent account shows a > negative amount. (-$70 K range) … > > Questions: > + What can I do to get the large negative amount for the Investment > Misc parent account not to be negative? Off the top of my head, I will guess that it is a sign that your investments are successful. Think about the signs of an expense-type account. You spend money, money goes out, the transaction has a positive sign. You get a refund, money comes in, the transaction has a negative sign. You get lots of refunds, you have a large credit in your expense-type account, you have a negative balance. The parent account "Investment Misc" is a expense-type account. If the total of all transactions in its child accounts adds up to money coming in, then the "Investment Misc" account ought to show a negative balance, right? It's a good thing! You have money! Someone who knows accounting theory could probably explain this in terms of credits and debits to Equity and Assets. I think I have heard that Expense and Income, and positive and negative signs, are a layer of ease of use on top of these fundamentals. An experiment to try would be to redesignate "Investment Misc" as an Income-type account. That might flip the sign of the account total. > …I didn't what to go willy-nilly changing things in fear of really > messing things up. Remember, every time you quit GnuCash, it makes a backup of your book file. If you want to try an experiment, you can: 1. Quit GnuCash. 2. Make a copy of the book file 3. Start GnuCash. 4. Try your experiment. 5. See if you like the results of the experiment. 6. If you do, keep using the new book. If you do not, then quit Gnucash, delete the most recent copy of your book file, and replace it with the copy you saved. Then restart GnuCash. Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.