Thanks, that makes sense. I read about "Allowance for Doubtful Accounts" on a few sites, so I was wondering where the balance would come from to go into that account.
I'll probably just go with this: I make a loan: 2015/11/01 Client Loan Assets:Accounts Receivable:Client $500 Assets:Checking Then write it off: 2015/11/02 Client loan write-off Expenses:Bad Debt $500 Assets:Accounts Receivable:Client Thanks, D On Saturday, November 7, 2015 at 12:13:47 AM UTC-5, Martin Blais wrote: > > On Fri, Nov 6, 2015 at 12:29 PM, danc2 <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > >> Hi all, does ledger support contra asset accounts? >> >> I need to write off a bad loan I made. I'm not an accountant, but it >> looks like using a contra asset account is the way to handle these. Using >> an expense account works (thanks sm!), but I'd like to keep it as an asset >> (with a negative balance) >> >> Any suggestions? >> > > Ledger (& Beancount) use the convention that amounts are posted to > accounts in their absolute value, that is, accounts aren't all kept at a > positive value. No credits and debits. Assets are positive, Liabilities > negative, Income is negative, and Expenses positive. This removes the set > of somewhat confusing rules about how to post to different accounts and > makes the operations simpler (on the other hand, users have to understand > and remember that the "normal" balance sign of Income, Liabilities and > Equity accounts is a negative number). > > Therefore, a "contra-account", which in normal accounting terms is "an > account whose normal balance is negative" becomes, in the context of > Ledger, "an account whose normal balance is of the opposite sign as the > expected one." That is, an Asset account with a negative balance, or a > Liabilities account with a positive balance. > > Account balances aren't constrained to be positive, so AFAIK any account > can be used like a contra account, just post to it to make its balance > opposite. e.g. debit from an Assets account into negative territory. > > I hope this helps. > > > > > > >> >> Thanks! >> >> >> -- >> >> --- >> 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] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- --- 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.
