I'm not sure what you mean when you say "documentation," but I don't think the Guide or
the Help would be appropriate places to make such references. Section 2.1 of the Guide gives a few
basic explanations on underlying accounting concepts. This section, in fact, states that "you
do not need to have a complete understanding of accounting principles to find it useful."
Misunderstanding? (at least what I have had to say)
I did not write that "you do not have to have a complete
understanding principles to find it useful (gnucash)" That's not quite a
wrong statement, but I would not have worded it that way because open to
misinterpretation. Which is what appears to be going on here.
a) Disagreement about what is "basics". You do not have to have a
complete understanding (or any understanding) of the parts of accounting
that you do not use. You don't have fixed assets that are being
depreciated? Fine, then you need to know nothing about that part of the
accounting process. .
b) We are seeing a lot of questions about things I would consider
"basics". Is what is in the Guide enough? I can't judge that because I
am not a teacher of accounting and there is nothing in there that I
didn't already know. It might perfectly well be adequate IF new people
studied it carefully and played around with test books before trying to
use gnucash "in production".
c) It could conceivably be better with the suggestion that people
entirely new to double entry bookkeeping try "formal" and "journal" mode
since that closer to what is actually being modeled. Allowing the
simplest transactions (just two accounts, one debit and one credit) to
skip entering as if in the journal saves a great deal of time once you
know what you are modeling as they make up the vast majority of
transactions.
It would definitely be better if it suggest "FIRST" create a set of
test books with just a handful of accounts and a small number of
transactions to be entered and then the reports that you plan to use
run, etc. don't just jump right in. The "jump right in" is OK for folks
who already know double entry bookkeeping and especially OK for folks
who have used other accounting software (QuickBooks, Sage, etc) and so
are only needing to learn the things different "the gnucash way". It is
not OK for folks coming from a "single entry" system. Double entry is a
different concept.
Michael D Novack
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