Cash Flow report vs. Income Statement

[Phil Longstaff]

Any contributions that users want to make to the documentation will be gratefully accepted.



________________________________
From: Ken Heard <ken at heard.name>
To: gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 1:15:10 PM
Subject: Re: Cash Flow report vs. Income Statement

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Mike or Penny Novack wrote, in part:

> I know I keep saying this but there is no way around having to learn at
> least the bare fundamentals of accounting principles. We could maybe
> discuss here whether the introduction that GnUCash provides to double
> entry bookkeeping is adequate or not IF people have read through it.
> That is perhaps a big if.

One of the many problems of the GnuCash documentation is the intermixing
of accounting concepts with the howtos of the various GnuCash features.
   Good manual writing practice recommends simplicity -- the KISS
principle.  These two should consequently be separate documents.

As for the first -- accounting concepts -- the document should state
whom GnuCash is for and consequently using it requires at least a basic
knowledge of double entry booking.  If all you want to do is balance
your cheque book there are other, simpler applications; in that case
GnuCash is not for you.

So, when the user comes to the second, how to use the cash flow
statement for example, s/he  will or should know what it is.  If not,
each document can refer to the relevant part of the other so that memory
can be refreshed.

Ninety percent of my problems in learning how to use GnuCash stem from
inadequate or even non-existent documentation.  The politest thing I can
say about it that it is very much a work in progress but still at the
seminal stage.

Ken Heard
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