Mostly positive

'Mostly positive' is a sign convention under which:

1. The items that there are most of, are designated as positive numbers.
2. Items to be deducted from, or netted off against, the positive items, are negative numbers.

The purpose of the 'mostly positive' convention is to reduce the number of negative figures in a report, to aid readability and identifying exceptions.

'Mostly positive' is a sign convention used typically for a report of costs or liabilities.

The costs or liabilities themselves would be positive numbers under this convention.

Under this sign convention, any credits against, or deductions from, the net costs or net liabilities in the report, would be negative numbers.

The consequence of adopting the 'mostly positive' sign convention is that most items in the report, or a related sheet in a model, are positive numbers.

See also

• B/(W)
• Exception
• Inflow/(outflow)
• Model
• Sign convention