I do wish accounting practice would finally accept the mathematical advancements of the last 500 years and start using negative numbers. Combined with the "transactions sum to zero" rule it makes things blindingly obvious.

Background: I studied the basics of accounting on 8th and 9th grade, and acted as a treasurer or auditor in some university student associations. I accepted the traditional presentation as a given; "it'll make sense in the end".

Then I learned the negative number thing and the sums-to-zero concept and suddenly it was completely clear what was happening. Ledger manual's "Principles of Accounting with Ledger" was where this finally kicked in.

https://ledger-cli.org/doc/ledger3.html#Principles-of-Accoun...