Accounting...
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Thanks. Yes, I see what you mean. As far as the accounts go. In my opinion, I really don't care what the accounts are called, or what they're for. I just move money between them. The only thing I have to know is whether it's a Assett or Liability account, correct? The logic of the rest is all up to the reporting engine, not the account engine. Some questions I have are regarding the data model. For instance, in a transaction table, should you have two columns, one for debits, one for credits. Or should you have a single "amount" column, and have debits be negative and credits positive? Or should you not have signed numbers, and just use a type field to indicate whether it's a debit or credit? I think you see where I'm going here. Furthermore, should you have two physical transaction records for each logical one (ie, subtract $100 from account A, and a second as the Add to Acct B)? Or should each record be a complete transaction (ie. $100 was subtracted from Acct A and added to Acct B)? Did I mention I hate Accounting? Lol.
-- Where are we going? And why am I in this handbasket?
Erik Funkenbusch wrote:
Furthermore, should you have two physical transaction records for each logical one (ie, subtract $100 from account A, and a second as the Add to Acct B)? Or should each record be a complete transaction (ie. $100 was subtracted from Acct A and added to Acct B)?
You've just touched on the reference in wiki to "multiple entry accounting", but double is the general term. So lets assume you have a sale, a very common transaction. The sale was for $110.00, $10 being taxes, $60 inventory, and $40 gross profit from sales so the register entry looks something like this:
Account credit debit
Cash 110.00
Tax 10.00
Inventory 60.00
Gross Profit 40.00_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)