In accounting, Debit is always on the left and Credit on the right—that’s the definition of debit and credit. See http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/tutorial/DrCrTChart.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit.

To change the terminology in Navigator, select Options | Accounting Terms.

Now for the interesting part:

Say you are paying a phone bill with your checking account using a multiple transaction to post it to two expense accounts.

If you are using debit and credit, debit is on the left in both Transaction Activity and Multiple Distribution. The checking entry is a credit (credit decreases asset). The expense entries are debits (debit increase expense). Everything balances and makes sense.

Now switch to deposit and charge. Deposit (debit) is on the left on the checking Transaction Activity screen. But it appears to be reversed on the Multiple Distribution screen—Charge is on the left! The amounts haven’t moved, only the column names. The reason is that the terms Charge and Deposit don’t mean anything in expense and income accounts. We arbitrarily made an increase in an expense a Charge, which makes some sense. But a Multiple Distribution to an income account has the same headings which is plain confusing. The moral of the story is use debit and credit—not deposit and charge!

- David
FNI Technical Support