the article says a debit is a loss and a credit is a gain. if you pay for cotton, you've "debited" your cash amount... your cash balance would decrease.
but now you say cash is an asset. ok. so? why does saying that now mean that "debiting" cash increases the cash balance? you certainly don't have more cash on hand... you have less.
I still subscribe to the definition of the words "debit" and "credit" that I learned in my 100-level accounting class: A debit is an entry in the left column of the journal, a credit is an entry in the right column. The meanings "gain" and "loss" only related to debit and credit when you're talking about the "normal balance" of a specific type of an account (an example: a debit to a revenue account represents realized revenue). Without the context of a specific type of account the words debit and credit only refer to the placement of the transaction in a journal.
The double entry for the cash account in your books is the opposite terminology used by the bank to present your transactions. For example, in your statement you would see cash coming in as a credit and a payment as a debit. This is because the bank is showing the debits and credits from their point of view - you have money held in the bank that they are obliged to give you when you request a withdrawal.
Every accounting entry has one side posted to the P&L and the other to the Balance Sheet (unless you're reclassifying between accounts but that's for another time). In the P&L a debit entry indicates a cost to you, and a credit indicates income earned. In the balance sheet, a debit will increase an asset or decrease a liability, vice versa for a credit.
To record a purchase in your books you have to post one side to the P&L and the other to the balance sheet. Because of the rules mentioned above you debit an expense, and because you need to balance out the entry, you post the credit to cash, which conveniently decreases your cash account asset.
It's confusing at first but easier when you understand and accept the mnemonic DEADCLIC.
the article says a debit is a loss and a credit is a gain. if you pay for cotton, you've "debited" your cash amount... your cash balance would decrease.
but now you say cash is an asset. ok. so? why does saying that now mean that "debiting" cash increases the cash balance? you certainly don't have more cash on hand... you have less.