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How Negative Balances Work in Blnk

Read a negative balance, and keep customer balances from going negative.

While using the Blnk Ledger, you might encounter negative balances. A negative balance simply indicates that the ledger has more debits than credits.

This indicator allows you to quickly assess the financial position of a ledger balance at a glance while reviewing your data.

Balance ID	balance	debit_balance	credit_balance
bln_5ce86029-3c2e-4e2a-aae2-7fb931ca4c4f	-20000	65000	45000
bln_28edb3e5-c168-4127-a1c4-16274e7a28d3	10000	20000	30000

In the table above, the balance for bln_5ce86029-3c2e-4e2a-aae2-7fb931ca4c4f is -20000, indicating that debits exceed credits, resulting in a negative balance. On the other hand, bln_28edb3e5-c168-4127-a1c4-16274e7a28d3 has a positive balance of 10000 because credits exceed debits.

How to avoid negative balances

Negative balances are not a cause for alarm.

However, if you prefer to avoid negative balances in your ledger, here’s how you can adjust your setup.

Designate a funding pool balance

Use a designated funding pool balance in your General Ledger to pre-fund your ledger balances with starting balances. This approach ensures you can post transactions on those balances without triggering overdrafts.

Apply overdrafts when funding from the pool

This ensures that only the funding pool balance incurs a negative balance, while your customer balances and other critical balances remain unaffected.

{
  "precise_amount": 12000023,
  "precision": 100,
  "reference": "ref_123abc",
  "source": "@FundingPool",
  "destination": "bal_customer",
  "description": "Creating a starting balance",
  "allow_overdraft": true
}