David I would love to agree with you but…..
In standard journal notation cr is a debt and dr an asset. This is because it is nothing to do with credit (+ve) and debit (-ve) in any sense (or tense) but to do with a creditor (to whom we owe) and a debtor (who owes us). Hence dr and cr relate to debtor and creditor and not to any form of debit or credit. For example, if I take cash from the cash box and deposit it at the bank I enter a cr to the cashbook and a dr to the bank account. Totally counterintuitive which is why accountancy is a black art and should be banned. I am also an engineer that has been a finance director for many years (but that does not necessarily give me the right to write what is right). Geoff +44 20 7100 1092 +44 7770 58 48 38 +33 5 46 97 13 89 +33 6 22 93 00 53 > On 5 Sep 2018, at 17:08, Colin Law <clan...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Wow, well now we know (or actually don't know), but we know we don't > know in great depth and detail :) > > Colin > On Wed, 5 Sep 2018 at 16:01, David Cousens <davidcous...@bigpond.com> wrote: >> >> Derek >> >> Latin past participles of creditum and debitum are debere and credere are a >> possible explanation. Another theory is the >> Dr stands for debit record and Cr credit record. Another is that Dr is from >> debtors and Cr is from creditors. I favour >> the first because Luca Pacciola who is often attributed (wrongly) with the >> first known treatise in 1494 (Summa de >> Arithmetica, Geometria, Proportioni et Proportionalita) which had a section >> on double entry accounting and formulated >> the first documented use of the accounting equation used the terms debere >> (to owe) and credere (to entrust) to describe >> the two sides of the basic accounting equation but there is also evidence >> that Pacciola used Per (from) and A (to) in >> journal entries. I don't know if any originals of Pacciola's original >> treatise have survived and most of the comments >> are from an English translation in 1633 where Handson used Dr from the >> English debtor. Another translator Geejsbeek in >> 1914 suggested Dr comes from "in dare" (give) and "in havere" (receive). >> Pacciola apparently learned his accounting from >> Arab traders in North Africa where his father was a merchant. Benedikt >> Kotruljevic in 1458 also described double entry >> accounting in a 1458 work on the Art of Trade published in Dubrovnik. I >> suspect both were describing methodology used by >> the Arab traders.There is also evidence that double entry might have been >> used in 10th century Muslim tax office but >> there is no definitive evidence. We will probably never know where the usage >> of the notation actually came from and the >> historians will continue to argue about it forever. >> David Cousens >> >> >> >> On Wed, 2018-09-05 at 09:59 -0400, Derek Atkins wrote: >>> Hi All, >>> >>> I'm an Engineer by training; I've picked up a ton of accounting >>> knowledge just by being involved here for the past few decades, but >>> there's one thing I've seen recently that I honestly don't underdstand >>> and would appreciate if a CPA or Accounting Historian could answer. >>> >>> Specifically, I've seen people show a transaction as: >>> >>> Dr ... / Cr ... >>> >>> So CR as an abbreviation for Credit makes sense to me (CRedit). But why >>> is Debit abbreviated as DR? There is no "R" in DEBIT. So where does >>> that come from? I would have expected it to be "Db". >>> >>> Just curious. >>> >>> -derek >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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. _______________________________________________ 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.
