Thanks, Mr. Losey for getting this particular ball rolling. I don't have an accounting degree but I was a budget analyst for many years using various computer programs. It is not necessary for many users to understand double entry accounting in order to use Gnucash.
Whenever you spend money, you identify the source of the money (your bank accounts or credit cards or cash from your wallet.) Those are your assets. You also identify what you spend it on and those are your expense accounts. You can usually identify one type of expense for each time you spend your money and that is called a transaction. The money out will equal the item cost. Sometimes you want to be more detailed about your cost and that is where splits come into play. Maybe you went to a gas station and purchased both gas and some groceries. You have one expense from your assets (the total spent), and two "incomes" to your expense accounts - an increase in money spent on gas in one split, and an increase in food cost in the other. The two splits will equal the money spent. That is the very basics of double-entry accounting and ignores equity if you don't care about it. My gnucash file has only the starting balances of my bank accounts and cash, and the starting balances of my liability accounts - credit cards or loans. These are the balances that existed the day I started using Gnucash. They include any unreconciled expenses in my checking accounts and in my liability accounts. All of these transactions were entered with their original dates so that I could balance the accounts when I received statements. I hope this helps using Gnucash less daunting. Start with a practice file and see how that works. Then you can create your good file to go forward. Any time I was trying something different in Gnucash, I would first play with it in my practice file. Pobruce On Sat, Nov 23, 2024 at 8:16 AM R Losey <rlo...@gmail.com> wrote: > I changed the subject because I want to start a discussion regarding the > below comment, which regularly appears in this group (I am not throwing > rocks at Stan). > > Sometimes, it is not a matter of understanding double-entry accounting or > bookkeeping, but much more "how is this commonly done?". This group, at > times, seems to throw out the "go learn double-entry bookkeeping" or "read > the manual" just a shade too often, when some people may just want to know > "How is -X- usually done?" (Look, I know it is tricky due to different tax > requirements, how detail-oriented the person wants to be, and the > flexibility of GnuCash to accomplish something in multiple ways, to name a > few). > > As an example, consider Equity. From a brief look through the Tutorial and > Concepts Guide, it doesn't seem to be mentioned a lot (I didn't see a > search, but I looked at likely areas). > > Perhaps it is a general accounting concept to close out the books by > zeroing income and expenses into equity, but I didn't know that until it > was mentioned here. I am very grateful to this list for learning about ways > to make this happen. I could have just been told to "go learn more about > accounting", but a few ideas about how to record such events was incredibly > helpful. > > > On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 2:40 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) < > stan...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > > > What Flavio _does_ really really need, in my opinion, is to read Chapter > > 2 of the Tutorial and Concepts Guide, and read it again until he's > > mastered it. He would save himself a lot of confusion if he would get > > absolutely clear in his head about debits versus credits, and the effect > > of a debit or credit on each type of account. Instead, it seems > > to me that he's just throwing splits together and then asking on this > > list about one transaction after another. Asking about every tree is not > > an efficient way to learn about the forest. > > > > GnuCash isn't hard to use, as software goes, but it's not very forgiving > > to folks who just dive in without understanding double-entry bookkeeping. > > > -- > _________________________________ > Richard Losey > rlo...@gmail.com > Micah 6:8 > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
