Maxim Money forum

Yes, the credit card account should be a negative balance, so every time you purchase something, you add a charge. When you pay off the credit card, you just create a transfer from your bank account to the credit card account, which should appear as a credit and reduce the negative balance in the credit card account.

Campbell wrote: Fri 27 Mar, 2026 9:21 am Yes, the credit card account should be a negative balance, so every time you purchase something, you add a charge. When you pay off the credit card, you just create a transfer from your bank account to the credit card account, which should appear as a credit and reduce the negative balance in the credit card account.

The Correct Balance (line-in-the-sand) function allows you to state that this is the balance in an account. It's useful in a number of ways. For Investment/Loan accounts you can use it to state the current value of the account. But for banking and credit accounts it's useful as a way to reconcile the account. When you add a Correcting Balance entry, it fixes the balance at that value, effectively ignoring the balance beforehand. Any subsequent transactions will use this balance as a basis. You can then add, remove, or update any transactions before the balance correction line, and instead of the balance changing, you will see the payment/deposit change, showing you how far off the desired balance you are. This can make it easier to identify which transaction(s) are preventing you from reaching the desired amount. If you adjust the transactions before this correction balance to match the desired balance, the correction line will disappear as it is no longer required. See also in the help.