Financial Glossary
Debit (Accounting)
In double-entry bookkeeping, a debit is an entry recorded on the left side of an account. Debits increase asset and expense accounts and decrease liability, equity, and revenue accounts. Each journal entry pairs debits with credits of equal total value so the accounting equation stays balanced.
Problem & Application
Debits trip up owner-operators because the everyday meaning is the opposite of the bookkeeping one: when your bank "debits your account," cash leaves, but in your ledger a debit to the cash account means cash came in. For a campground or short-term-rental business reconciling dozens of card and bank transactions a month, knowing which side of an account a debit belongs on is what keeps the books from drifting out of balance.
In Short
A debit is simply the left-side entry whose effect depends on the account type. Mastering that rule is the first step to trustworthy financial records.