Paying myself a distribution caused a negative Owner's Equity account balance? Is this normal?
"It's not abnormal for a company that is as young as yours seems to be. It seems (based on what little I know), that you have debts, or accounts payable that were formerly covered by the $200 cash, but now aren't, because you paid it to yourself. For now, you're ""entitled"" to pay yourself a draw or a salary. But if you continue to do so without earning money to cover it, your company will fail."
Could be misunderstanding your context. But ev = equity + debt - cash. So don't think it makes sense for an equity holder to have an individual ev/ebitda different from the company's.   Are you asking in context of valuing equity and debt from an ev/ebitda multiple? Okay- I follow that.    When we look a shorting a name -  what makes that an equity transaction rather than a debt one? I guess how does that differ from investing in a bond?    I recognize the simplicity of this question.    Thanks. Makes sense.  I typed the previous reply on an ipad and was too lazy to go into the fact that as you point out the cash exits the balance sheet so in a DCF it doesn't get any weight in the terminal value calculation which makes up a significant chunk of an EV normally. "I am interested in seeing what happens to your report after you test this, but I don't think it's possible in practice, would not affect your credit score, and also wouldn't be worth it for you to carry a negative balance like that. Having a -1% credit utilization essentially means that you are lending the credit card company money, which isn't really something that the credit card companies ""do"". They would likely not accept an agreement where you are providing the credit to them. Having credit is a more formal agreement than just 'I paid you too much this month'. Even if your payment does post before the transaction and it says you have a negative balance and gets reported to the credit bureau like that, this would probably get flagged for human review, and a negative credit utilization doesn't really reflect what is happening. Credit utilization is 'how much do you owe / amount of credit available to you', and it's not really correct to say that you owe negative dollars. Carrying a negative balance like that is money that could be invested elsewhere. My guess is that the credit card company is not paying you the APR of your card on the amount they owe you (if they are please provide the name of your card!). They probably don't pay you anything for that negative balance and it's money that's better used elsewhere. Even if it does benefit your credit score you're losing out on any interest (each month!) you could have earned with that money to get maybe 1-2% better rate on your next home or car loan (when will that be?).  TLDR: I think credit utilization approaches a limit at 0% because it's based on the amount you owe and you don't really owe negative dollars. I am very interested in seeing the results of this experiment, please update us when you find out!" You likely received the shares as ordinary income for services of $10k, since they withheld taxes at granting.  Separately, you likely had a short term capital loss on sale of $2k, since your holding period seems to have been under one year. I do understand what a creditor and equity holder is. I'm just saying my teacher NEVER brought up ponzi schemes and tied it to anything related to our accounting. He didn't think it was worth his time to go into details how ponzi schemes break accounting principles.  I also posted the question in finance as my finance courses dealt with financing money... And banks... I funded about a half dozen loans. All were AA or A rated. All but one paid me. The one who stiffed me wiped out all my profit on the others. I ended up with a tiny negative return. You did something that you shouldn't have done; you bought a dividend.  Most mutual fund companies have educational materials on their sites that recommend against making new investments in mutual funds in the last two months of the year because most mutual funds distribute their earnings (dividends, capital gains etc) to their shareholders in December, and the share price of the funds goes down in the amount of the per share distribution. These distributions can be taken  in cash or can be re-invested in the fund; you most likely chose the latter  option (it is often the default choice if you ignored all this because you are a newbie). For those who choose to reinvest, the number of shares in the mutual fund increases, but since the price of the shares has decreased, the net amount remains the same. You own more shares at a lower price than the day before when the price was higher but the total value of your account is the same (ignoring normal market fluctuations in the price of the actual stocks held by the fund. Regardless of whether you take the distributions as cash or re-invest in the fund, that money is taxable income to you (unless the fund is owned inside a 401k or IRA or other tax-deferred investment program).  You bought 56 shares at a price of $17.857 per share (net cost $1000). The fund distributed its earnings shortly thereafter and gave you 71.333-56= 15.333 additional shares. The new share price is $14.11. So, the total value of your investment is $1012, but the amount that you have invested in the account is the original $1000 plus the amount of the distribution which is (roughly) $14.11 x 15.333 = $216.  Your total investment of $1216 is now worth $1012 only, and so you have actually lost money. Besides, you owe income tax on that $216 dividend that you received.  Do you see why the mutual fund companies recommend against making new investments late in the year?  If you had waited till after the mutual fund had made its distribution, you could have bought $1000/14.11 = 70.871 shares and wouldn't have owed tax on that distribution that you just bought by making the investment just before the distribution was made. See also my answer to this recent question about investing in mutual funds. Is it just -34*4.58= -$155.72 for CCC and -11*0.41= -$4.51 for DDD? Yes it needs to be recorded as negative because at some point in time, the investor will have to spend money to buy these shares [cover the short sell and return the borrowed shares]. Whether the investor made profit or loss will not be reflected as you are only reflecting the current share inventory. "You're not focusing in the right place and neither is anyone else on this thread because this isn't about the guy owning you money... This is about you not having enough money to pay your rent.  If rent wasn't due and the utility bills weren't piling up, you wouldn't be trying to justify taking money out of someone else's account. So let's triage this. Your #1 problem isn't hunting down Dr. Deadbeat's wallet. So put a pin in that for now and get to the real deal.  Getting rent paid. Right? OK, you said he called ""regarding a business I have"".  It's great that you have your own business.  Are you also employed elsewhere?  If you are, then you really should simply go to your employer and tell them you are in financial distress.  Tell them that right now you can't cover your rent or bills and you want to know if they can help, i.e. give you an advance from your paycheck, do a withdrawal/loan from a retirement savings that's in your employee benefits package, etc...  They will HELP YOU because it's in their best interest as much as it is in yours. Foregoing that, consider these thoughts... If you were to go your grandparents telling them what you told all of us here, and ask them the same ""do you think it's ok to..."", they would say something close to ""Absolutely DO NOT touch someone else bank account EVER! It doesn't matter what information you have, how you got it, or what you think they owe you. Do NOT touch it.  There's a legal system that will help you get it from them if they truly do owe it to you.""   I guarantee you this, withdrawing funds from an account on which you are NOT an authorized signatory is both financial theft as well as identity theft. Bonus if you do it on a computer, because you'd then be facing criminal charges that go beyond your specific legal district, i.e. you'd face criminal charges on a national level. If convicted, odds are you'd be sentenced within the penal guidelines of the Netherlands 1983 Financial Penalties Act (FPA). Ergo, you would have much much much less money in the very near future, which would feel like an eternal walk through the Hell of the court system.  Ultimately, over your lifetime you would be exponentially poorer than you may think you are now.  I strongly urge you to rebrand this ""financial loss"" as ""Tuition at the School of Hard Knocks"". There's one last thing... the train jumps the tracks for me during your story... This guy called you? Right?...  (raised eyebrow) What kind of business do you ""have""?  The sense of desperation and naiveté in your urgent need for money to pay rent. The fact that you are accepting payment for services by conducting a  bank transfer specifically from your clients account directly toward your own utility bills is a big red flag. Bypassing business accounting and using revenue for personal finances isn't legitimate business practices. Plus you are doing it by using the bank information of brand new client who is a TOTAL stranger.  Now consider fact that this total stranger was so exceedingly generous to someone from whom he wanted personal services to be rendered. Those all tell me that he's doing something he wants the other person to do for him and he doesn't want anyone else to know.  The fact that he's being so benevolent like a 'sugar daddy' tells me that he feels guilty for having someone do what he's asking them to do.  Perceived financial superiority is the smoothest of smooth power tools that predators and abusers have in their bag.  For instance, an outlandish financial promise is probably the easiest way to target someone who is vulnerable; and then seduce them into being their victim.  Redirecting your focus on how much better life will be once your problem is solved by this cash rather than focusing on the fact that they're taking advantage of you.  Offering to pay rates that are dramatically excessive is a way of buying a clean conscious, because he's doing something that will ""rescue you"" from a crisis. The final nail in the coffin for me was that he left so abruptly and your implied instinct suggesting his reason was a lie.  It sounds like he got scared or ashamed of his actions and ran out.  It paints a picture that this was sex-for-money Good luck to you." "Because you've sold something you've received cash (or at least an entry on your brokerage statement to say you've got cash) so you should record that as a credit in your brokerage account in GnuCash. The other side of the entry should go into another account that you create called something like ""Open Positions"" and is usually marked as a Liability account type (if you need to mark it as such). If you want to keep an accurate daily tally of your net worth you can add a new entry to your Open Positions account and offset that against Income which will be either negative or positive depending on how the position has moved for/against you. You can also do this at a lower frequency or not at all and just put an entry in when your position closes out because you bought it back or it expired or it was exercised. My preferred method is to have a single entry in the Open Positions account with an arbitrary date near when I expect it to be closed and each time I edit that value (daily or weekly) so I only have the initial entry and the current adjust to look at which reduces the number of entries and confusion if there are too many." "The part that I find confusing is the loan/stock hybridization.  Why would the investor be entitled to a 30% share if he's also expecting to be getting paid back in full? This is the part that's making me scratch my head.  I can understand giving equity and buying out later.  I can understand giving equity with no expectation of loan repayment.  I can understand loan repayment without equity.  I can even understand collateralizing the loan with equity.  I can not understand how ""zeroing out"" the loan still leaves him with a claim on 30% of the equity. Would this be more of a good will gesture as a way to thank the investor for taking a chance?  Please forgive any naivety in my questions." * Absolutely agree with /u/IsAnAlpaca  * You /must/ not agree to this without seeing his balance sheet. * That means assets and liabilities, but also ask for the last 12 months' cash flow * Inability or unwillingness to provide any of those things is a HUGE no-go red flag. In accrual accounting, you account for items on the income statement when the service has been delivered - in this case, the service that your employees are providing your company. Because of this, you incur the expense in the fiscal year that your employees work for you. So, you incur the expense, and net income decreases by (1-t)*wage expense.  Net income decreases, so owners' equity decreases; to balance you credit wages payable. Once the wages are paid, you decrease the liabilities side (wages payable) and offset it with a Cash change on the assets side. if the consolidated joint venture/sub has a negative net worth, then it is backing out the minority owner's share.    if another entity is taking the hit, or responsible for a hit/liability instead of you, then it should improve your valuation.   do not confuse net worth with net income. BS vs IS.