[kgwgk]

I have no problem with negative numbers.

But most people would find your idea of using negative numbers for assets rather idiosyncratic.

It's more natural to say that the assets of Goldman Sachs are $1trn than to say that they are -$1trn, for example.

[sago]

It's definitely not my idea! It wasn't Goldman Sachs, but I did a consultancy 15 Years ago for a large bank (my little job was a long way from programming the core, but used it extensively). Their system stored debit as negative numbers. That's when I learned it and had the aha moment when everything instantly simplified. Since then all the accounting software I've seen the inside of do.

Most lay-people find double entry in accounting idiosyncratic. It has this bad reputation for being full of special case rules.

It is interesting that the one comment I got from an accountant on here it seemed fine with debit as negative numbers.

Goldman Sachs absolutely know that they have DB$1tn! Anyone who thinks it is either a credit account or just a bare number is not going to be dealing with that!

Thanks for carrying on the chat.

[kgwgk]

> It stored debit as negative numbers.

Did it display assets in the balance sheet as negative numbers?

> the one comment I got from an accountant on here it seemed fine with debit as negative numbers

Was that accountant fine with assets as negative numbers?

> Goldman Sachs absolutely know that they have DB$1tn!

The did have $1tn in their balance sheet. No DB, no CR. Just $1tn.

[sago]

> Did it displayed assets

It's an API. There are many tools built on top of it, many with UIs. I'm sure they display things in many different ways for people internally and externally. The system I was working was back-end. It used negative numbers for debits. And it was really important you didn't confuse credit and debit numbers.

> Was that accountant fine with assets as negative numbers?

I find it hard to believe they didn't understand that's what Using negative numbers for debits means. They would be pretty aware that assets are debit accounts.

> The did have $1tn in their balance sheet. No DB, no CR. Just $1tn.

Did they have a complex balance sheet (I.e. beyond that just a couple of lines summary) with no columns? How do they represent a balance if you couldn't tell which were credits and debits?

[kgwgk]

For the record, this is what the consolidated balance sheet looks like: https://imgur.com/a/i8q0Fa2

[sago]

Neat. Thank you. I get what you're saying now.

And that makes sense. You can see the balance. Because it will balance. Or you'd know which of the things were debit accounts and which went credit accounts.

Yep.

But I definitely bet it's not raw unsigned/untyped numbers behind that document! I suspect we've just been mismatching on different levels: I began this discussion about developers understanding double entry bookkeeping. I would be surprised if you could get very far if you didn't understand the difference between debit and credit. But your pushback makes sense. Thank you.

[kgwgk]

I do understand the difference between debit and credit. The point is not whether you can balance the books looking at them when they fit in a single page. The point is that in a balance sheet assets appear as $x (where x is rarely negative, an asset with negative value would become a liability).

People want assets to be positive in the balance sheet. This may be a convention but it's a reasonable convention. I don't think you're helping developers who try to understand accounting by telling them that assets are negative quantities (it may make sense as an implementation detail, but not so much as an accounting concept).