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Debit and Credit are formal bookkeeping and accounting terms that have opposite meanings and come from Latin. Debit comes from debere, which means "to owe". The Latin debitum means "debt". Credit comes from the Latin word credere, which means "to believe". It is more common to use the terms in the plural, Debits and Credits. Debit is abbreviated as Dr., while credit is abbreviated as Cr. "Debit" also refers to the left side of a general ledger account, while "Credit" refers to the right side. Due to the proliferation of bookkeeping and accounting computer software, it is now common for Debits to be mistakenly treated as positive values and Credits to be mistakenly treated as negative values. This allows for mathematical calculations. This has lead to confusion as people do not understand why a Sales amount is treated as an negative value (Credit) and an expense is treated as a positive value (Debit). If the value of the debits are greater than the value of the credits, then the balance on the account is a debit and should not be described as a positive value balance. Debits or Credits are neither positive or a negative values. The balance on an account is either a debit or a credit not a positive or a negative value. Asset and expense accounts increase in value when debited and decrease when credited. Whereas liability, equity, and revenue accounts decrease in value when debited and increase when credited. This distinction is somewhat counterintuitive, until the nature of those accounts is more closely scrutinized. For example, revenue is coded as a credit. After recording a day's sales invoices, the company will have credited a certain amount in revenue, but the customers ledger will hold a debit balance being the amount of the unpaid invoices. To fully understand this see Double-entry bookkeeping system where Debits and Credits form the core of that system.

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