Excerpts from Rick F's message of 2015-03-16 02:07:33 -0400: > So along comes Ledger, written by a computer scientist, not an > accountant. Computer scientists don't have anything against > subtraction since it's really just 2's complement addition, and they > hate added complexity, so they do away with credits and debits > entirely by just moving everything to one side of the equation. > Debits+-Debits=0.
This is the reason why I find Ledger's model much simpler than the classic double entry accounting model. When I look at descriptions of the latter, e.g., the article on Wikipedia, I get terribly confused about which types of accounts get bigger or smaller when you credit or debit them. I finally realized that my confusion about the seemingly unnecessary complication stems from accountants' hatred of negative numbers. But I find negative numbers so much easier to understand. All I have to know about ledger is that in a transaction, money added to an account (or accounts) has to be subtracted from another account (or accounts). Then, for example, I can treat credit cards and checking accounts the same way: when I take money from them, their balances are reduced. The difference is that a credit card starts with a zero balance and goes negative when I take money from it; the checking account starts with a positive balance, and (if I'm doing things frugally) stays positive (though reduced) when I take money from it. Accountants would probably hate this model of things, but it works for me. -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
