Gaya, Following on from Derek's comment, GnuCash is a double entry accounting system. What this means is that when you record an event in your finances, a transaction that transaction will affect two or more accounts. In simple transactions involving two accounts, there will be a debit entry and a credit entry of equal value. For more complex transactions the sum of the debit entries must be equal to the sum of the credit entries in the record of the transaction in GnuCash.
Where you are recording the existing balances in your accounts e.g. a check or savings account, the debit entry will be to the GnuCash account recording your bank account and the credit entry will be to a sub account under Equity, Opening Balances. You can place a register displaying the transactions to a given account in auto-split mode (View menu and check the Auto Split radio button or Edit->Preferences-.Register Defaults and check the Auto-split button here to set this as the default for all registers) in which the entries to the different accounts for the selected transaction are displayed on successive lines (usually with a light brown background) under the highlighted selected transaction. For info on GnuCash the official documentation is a good point to start if you are new to GnuCash and/or double entry accounting. https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/index.html https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=help The Tutorial and Concepts guide has an introductory session on double entry accounting and Ch5 of the manual discusses setting opening balances from the new account dialogue when the account is created. If not set at thecreation of the account, the transaction entries can be manually set from the account register for the account. David Cousens On Thu, 2025-02-13 at 00:35 -0500, Gaya Erlandson wrote: > I put in all the info - every transaction, for the entire tax year > 2024 > into GnuCash on my Mac and thought all was well. Then I saw that the > "Opening Balance" of my main checking account (under Equity) is 0 and > then > spent the last 2+ hours trying to figure out how to add the opening > balance. I've even been consulting ChatGPT - to no avail. No matter > how I > manually try to type in the Opening Balance for that checking > account, it > automatically creates a "decrease" or debit for the same amount and > I'm > back to 0 again - literally. > > I sure would appreciate some help - especially via a phone call. I'm > in the > Asheville area of North Carolina which is in the NY time zone. Could > someone contact me between the hours of 9am - 9pm, Eastern Standard > Time? > > Kind regards, > Gaya > > Gaya Erlandson, PhD > Certified Imago Relationship Therapist > Consultant for Collaborative Community > 828-581-9036 > > *Whatever the Problem, Community is the Answer ~**Meg Wheatly* > _______________________________________________ > 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.
