[GNC] Split Transactions Version 5.6

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 4/10/2024 7:11 PM, Kevin Wilcoxon via gnucash-user wrote:
> Thank you both for your responses. I see I have been using the term 
> "split transaction" wrong. I was using Ace Money where this term was 
> used to signify a single transaction, say from the Checking Account, 
> to two different categories, say Household and Groceries. Is there a 
> term for this in GnuCash and can it be done here?
>
> Thanks Again
> Kevin 

Yes, that is a useful way to think of "split" in gnucash. The credit 
side of the transaction involves just one account, Checking, but the 
debit side involves two, Household and Groceries.

When "split" on only one side, start with the other account, in this 
case Checking. You begin entering the usual way (what I call the 
shortcut) and then hit the "split" button. What that does is switch you 
to journal mode for this transaction. It will have that first account 
and amount filled in and have that amount on the debit side with account 
Imbalance. On THAT line you change the account to be one of the debits 
AND CHANGE THE AMOUNT to what it would be for that account. Now the 
remainder shows up on the next line account Imbalance. You change that 
to the correct second account. You should now not have anything left 
Imbalance. After you hit to enter the transaction your view will switch 
back to normal "shortcut" view << in the ledger account were you began >>

BUT --- you could have asked gnucash to show you all in journal view 
(could enter all transactions that way). That's why I suggest if totally 
new to double entry bookkeeping might be a good way to begin. The 
"shortcut" gnucash is using is what we (in pen and ink on paper days) 
used to call "cashbook accounting" where a small subset of the ledger, 
including "cash" (checking) plus the other most popular accounts 
bypassed entering in the journal << and say at the bottom of each page 
the totals entered into the main ledger >> If we did "cashbook" (for the 
most popular subset) what gnucash is doing is very familiar to us, 
except covering all accounts << we were limited by the width a the 
widest accounting paper, usually 12 columns >>

Michael D Novack

PS -- That's why adjustment transactions not involving cash were called 
"journal transactions" as they could not be entered into the cashbook 
subset ledger. Note that folks who are coming to gnucash from using 
spreadsheets (columns like accounting paper) might have used less 
limited "cashbook" since the spreadsheet could have a lot more columns 
than a physical paper page.