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Why are payments considered negative numbers and deposits considered positive numbers?
Interesting note: as late as the 18th century, many mathematicians considered negative numbers to be "nonsense". Negative numbers did not become universally accepted as existing until about the same time that imaginary numbers did.
Before the wide-spread acceptance of negative numbers, payments were credits and deposits were debits.
A credit subtracted the payment from your balance, while a debit added the payment to your balance.
After the advent of negative numbers, it was shown that subtraction is simply adding a negative number. So a payment (which is a subtraction) can be reinterpreted to be a negative number being added to your balance.
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