gnucash 1.6.1 questions

[Bill Gribble]

On 31 Aug 2001 08:57:42 -0400, Haines Brown wrote:
> I don't want to be argumentative, but I just can't agree. I'm too poor
> to have money flowing in and out of different places. Once a month a
> Social Security check is deposited for me, and once a month I make out a
> bunch of checks. 

I think you have misunderstood what's going on with the split dialog.
You don't have to be a "capitalist".  The simplest purpose of the splits
is to categorize your expenses by type so that you can understand where
your money is going.  

For example, if your major expenditures are for food, electricity,
gasoline, and amateur radio equipment (which I'm assuming is where all
your disposable income goes :), and you have only one bank account plus
the cash in your pocket, it is very simple to make accounts for each of
these things: 

Bank Account      (type Bank)
Cash in pocket    (type Cash)

Expenses          (type Expense)
  Food            (type Expense)
  Electric bill   (type Expense)
  Gasoline        (type Expense)
  Ham equipment   (type Expense)
 
Then, when you pay an electric bill, you set the "other" account (which
you are currently leaving blank) to "Expenses:Electric bill".  This will
allow you to easily see how much money you are spending on each type of
expense.  

If that's not interesting or useful to you, I suggest that you create an
account called "Misc", of type Expense, set all your transactions to use
it, and then set the account tree preferences not to display expense
accounts.

Thanks
Bill Gribble