Hello howie2,

It's great to have you join us again. I appreciate how QuickBooks Online's setup and terminology could be confusing. I'll work through this with you.

What terminology you're seeing in the account registers depends on what type of account you've got pulled up. For instance, some accounts will have terms such as charge/credit and payment or payment and deposit. A liability account uses the terms increase and decrease as you're noticing. At this time, there isn't a way to change those terms or input your own. I recommend you leave feedback about this through the Gear icon in your account.

Secondly, I hear what you're saying about the loan account and see how this could be counterintuitive. For these kinds of accounts, including credit cards, the amount will show as positive when there's money owed. A negative amount would mean there's been an overpayment to what's owed.

The increase in this case is an increase in the amount owed. The decrease means you owe less because you've made a payment. If you've set up the loan using steps such as those outlined in the following article, you should be good to go: Record a loan and its payment

We always love hearing feedback from our customers so we can continue to enhance QuickBooks Online and what it does for users like you.

I'm here should you need anything else!