[Linux-disciples] Gnucash

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

Every transaction is balanced by an equal and opposite transaction.  The
net sum of everything always must be zero.

Thus, if it is a deposit into your checking account, it *must* be a
withdrawal from your income account.  It doesn't really matter what you
call it in the income account--if you like, you can think of it as a
withdrawal from your employer's account.

This is not really a gnucash-specific concept, though, it's how this sort
of bookkeeping always works.

When you "withdraw" from your income account, the balance doesn't go
negative, though--it just goes up.  So at the end of the year, you'll be
able to look at the number next to the income account, and know how much
you made.

I find with gnucash eventually everything just intuitively goes into
place.  If it helps you conceptually to think of it as a deposit into
your checking, just add the transaction from the checking register, and
don't worry about the fact that an equal and opposite transaction has
been created in income which is a "withdrawal."

On Sun, Sep 12, 2004 at 09:06:24PM -0400, Stephen R Laniel wrote:
> I think maybe gnucash's double-entry bookkeeping is
> puzzling me. If I want to record a $20 expense in my
> checking account, I'd just record a $20 transfer
> to the 'Expense' account in my checking-account register,
> right?
> 
> I'm having trouble getting the split-transaction function to
> work, and I'm consulting the documentation:
> http://shorl.com/gydrogretobrobri
> 
> The example it gives of splitting a transaction confuses me.
> The gross salary is recorded as a $1,000 *withdrawal* from
> the Income:Salary account, when it seems to me that it ought
> to be a $1,000 *deposit* to the checking account.
> 
> So am I viewing gnucash backwards? When I'm in the
> checking-account window, and I put a number underneath the
> 'withdrawal' column, I expect that means "withdrawal *from
> the checking account*." Is that not so? Does it instead mean
> "withdrawal from another account *into the checking
> account*"?
> 
> If so, that would really puzzle me. Gnucash seems to be
> getting the direction of the numbers right when I'm doing it
> the way I'm doing it: a $40 withdrawal correctly subtracts
> from the balance on my checking account.
> 
> If someone can explain to me what's wrong here, that would
> be a great help toward getting my finances in order.
-- 
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.bostoncoop.net/pipermail/linux-disciples/attachments/20040912/154c74f9/attachment.pgp