It’s been 15 years since I took an accounting course. Why would my bank account be debited when the balance went up? Is a debit not negative? Is the cash balance presented as a negative?
Indeed this is confusing to most people (myself included the first time I dealt with it), since if your phone company says they’re giving you a credit, you're getting money.
Your bank account is an asset for you, so debits increase the balance while credits decrease it. This is also called a "debit normal" account.
Liability accounts are tracked in reverse and are "credit normal". You increase the value (how much you owe) with a credit to the account and decrease the value (payments you receive) with a debit.
One way to think about is you always "credit" the source of the money.
If you get money from somebody you "credit" them for giving you the money. You say "I must give you credit for having done this".
If money goes into your bank-account you don't credit your bank-account because money didn't come from there it went there. If you don't credit the bank account you must be doing something else and that is called "debit". When money goes to your bank-account you "debit" it because now the bank-account is more "indebted" to you. You don't have the cash in your wallet but the bank-account is indebted to you by that amount.
From the view-point of the bank-manager things are of course reverse. When you put money into your bank-account the bank-manager "credits" you-the-account (in their books) for having done so.
I guess a crucial thing to realize is that your bank-account in your books is a different thing from your bank-account in the books of the bank. It seems like there is only one bank-account, but two different parties (you and the bank) each have their own version of that "account" in their book-keeping system.
A double-entry book-keeping system is "subjective" in that it always describes things only from the viewpoint of whoever it is who is doing the book-keeping.
Yes! Because you can remove your deposits from the bank and they also have to pay you interest on that balance. Your mortgage is an asset to the bank for the opposite reasons.
In your books, your bank account is an asset, and therefore an increase in the balance is recorded with a debit. In the bank's books, it's the other way around.
Indeed this is confusing to most people (myself included the first time I dealt with it), since if your phone company says they’re giving you a credit, you're getting money.