Lesson 1 of 4 · Accounting Basics

Debits and credits, in one rule.

Money never moves alone. Once you can see both sides of a transaction, a journal entry stops being a mystery. Pick an example below and watch it split.

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Debit Cash Rp 500,000 · Credit Sales Revenue Rp 500,000

One transaction, two entries. The amount is the same on both sides, which is what keeps the books in balance. Change the transaction and the accounts change; the balance never does.
Assets and Expenses sit on the debit side; Liabilities, Equity and Revenue on the credit side. This is the Type column of your Chart of Accounts read sideways, and it is why the Transaction Log flips the sign for some accounts and not others.

  • Every transaction has two sides

    Money never moves alone. Every rupiah leaves one account and lands in another. Record both sides and your books cannot drift out of balance without you seeing it.

  • The plain rule: what increases, what decreases

    Debit an account to increase Assets or Expenses, or to decrease Liabilities, Equity or Revenue. Credit does the opposite. Learn this one line and you can journal anything.

  • Every account has a normal side

    Assets and Expenses normally carry a debit balance; Liabilities, Equity and Revenue normally carry a credit balance. This is exactly the Type column on your Chart of Accounts, and it is why the Transaction Log flips the sign for some accounts and not others.

  • Worked example: a cash sale

    You sell Rp 500,000 of goods and the customer pays on the spot. Debit Cash Rp 500,000, credit Sales Revenue Rp 500,000. An asset goes up because income has been earned.

  • Worked example: buying stock for resale

    You buy Rp 2,000,000 of inventory and pay from the bank. Debit Inventory Rp 2,000,000, credit Bank Account Rp 2,000,000. Cash converts into a different asset. It has not been spent, only moved.

  • Worked example: paying rent

    You pay Rp 3,000,000 rent for the month from the bank. Debit Rent Expense Rp 3,000,000, credit Bank Account Rp 3,000,000. An expense goes up, the asset that paid for it goes down.

  • Worked example: the owner takes money out

    You withdraw Rp 1,000,000 from the business for personal use. Debit Prive (Owner's Drawings) Rp 1,000,000, credit Cash Rp 1,000,000. This is not an expense. It never touches the P&L, it only reduces the owner's equity.

  • Where this lives in your workbook

    The Transaction Log's Debit account and Credit account columns are this rule in practice. Fill both correctly on every row and the account summary on the right will add up, along with every report you build from it.