I'm in the process of setting up KMymoney.

When I enter a new card in the form, I enter the balance (what I owe) but it shows up as a positive balance (money I have) instead of the balance I owe. What am I doing wrong?

Sorry if this is vague or confusing. I'm not good with financial terms.

If I recall correctly, when I set up my CC account, I entered the debit balance with a minus sign in front.
Let us know...
A

Thanks! Yeah I just entered it without a minus sign. I tried edit it and put in a minus sign but it wouldn't take.

When I click on one of the cards it shows just the opening balance with say $500 in the payment column and -500 in the balance column. I haven't entered any transactions yet.

A couple of things to try:
1) When you edit that original balance entry, look down in the lower left for a window that toggles between To and FROM. That is sometimes in the wrong state.
2) If push comes to shove, you could always delete the account and rebuild it since there is only one "transaction".
Don't give up. If my ideas are of no help, there are several on this board who are better with KMM than I and they will help you through any problems. It IS worth the trek. Stay the course. And welcome to KMM.
A

As Atheist said, toggle the "To/From" payee button to get what you want.

Edit the account details of the credit card account, remove the minus sign from your opening balance and quit the dialog with OK. That should do the trick (at least for the opening balance transaction).

Thanks everyone! Toggling the to/from did the trick. I definitely have a better understanding of how to enter transactions.

When entering a credit card balance in Kmymoney, you want to make sure you're inputting the correct amount you owe. It's common for the balance to show up as a positive number, which can be confusing, but it's actually correct. Think of it this way: the positive number represents the amount you owe, while a negative balance would mean you have a credit on the card. So, if you owe $500 on your credit card, you would enter it as a positive $500 balance. You might also want to check out the credit card sites of other firms. You will be able to familiarize yourself with the procedure for introducing credit. There is a site like https://Brianscrabs.cm. You might want to look there.