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Excellent write-up, but having taken Corporate Accounting courses the "triple-entry bookkeeping" moniker tripped me up a bit - it's an inaccurate metaphor (see

by tsmith 12y ago

Excellent write-up, but having taken Corporate Accounting courses the "triple-entry bookkeeping" moniker tripped me up a bit - it's an inaccurate metaphor (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping_system to understand why).

igrigorik 12y ago
Curious, could you elaborate? The wiki page is long, not sure what I'm looking for... It seems like "triple-entry" is often used alongside "momentum accounting", but its not clear to me why they are conflated. Disclaimer: I'm no accountant, so the simple terms are good. :)
- comrade1 12y ago
  double-entry means the transaction cancels out at both ends. The result is a transaction of 0. Triple-entry is meaningless. atm-withdrawal + cash $100 - bankaccount $100
- thefreeman 12y ago
  fyi comrade your hellbanned
  - thefreeman 12y ago
    Uhh, I was just trying to let comrade1 know that all of his comments were appearing dead. It seems to have been fixed now though. I guess that is somehow deserving of downvotes...
- tsmith 12y ago
  In the OP, double-entry accounting is taken to mean that the two parties to a transaction each keep a record of it (and by extension triple-entry accounting is if three parties keep a record of it). This is a mis-use of the term "double-entry accounting" to mean "two-party recordkeeping". Double-entry accounting means that for each transaction, there will be two (sometimes more) entries in the ledger (set of accounts) - one on the "credit" side, and one on the "debit" side. For example, when you withdraw $100 from your bank account, from the bank's perspective it is crediting an Asset (Cash) and debiting a Liability (Customer Accounts), so a credit entry of $100 would go into the Cash "account" and a debit entry of $100 would go into the Customer Accounts "account". Triple-entry accounting implies that a third entry would go... somewhere else in the ledger; but OP isn't describing a classic set-of-accounts ledger.
maaku 12y ago
Triple-entry is the technical term for this type of book keeping.

by tsmith 12y ago

igrigorik 12y ago

Curious, could you elaborate? The wiki page is long, not sure what I'm looking for... It seems like "triple-entry" is often used alongside "momentum accounting", but its not clear to me why they are conflated. Disclaimer: I'm no accountant, so the simple terms are good. :)

comrade1 12y ago
double-entry means the transaction cancels out at both ends. The result is a transaction of 0. Triple-entry is meaningless. atm-withdrawal + cash $100 - bankaccount $100
thefreeman 12y ago
fyi comrade your hellbanned
- thefreeman 12y ago
  Uhh, I was just trying to let comrade1 know that all of his comments were appearing dead. It seems to have been fixed now though. I guess that is somehow deserving of downvotes...
tsmith 12y ago
In the OP, double-entry accounting is taken to mean that the two parties to a transaction each keep a record of it (and by extension triple-entry accounting is if three parties keep a record of it). This is a mis-use of the term "double-entry accounting" to mean "two-party recordkeeping". Double-entry accounting means that for each transaction, there will be two (sometimes more) entries in the ledger (set of accounts) - one on the "credit" side, and one on the "debit" side. For example, when you withdraw $100 from your bank account, from the bank's perspective it is crediting an Asset (Cash) and debiting a Liability (Customer Accounts), so a credit entry of $100 would go into the Cash "account" and a debit entry of $100 would go into the Customer Accounts "account". Triple-entry accounting implies that a third entry would go... somewhere else in the ledger; but OP isn't describing a classic set-of-accounts ledger.

maaku 12y ago

Triple-entry is the technical term for this type of book keeping.