help

Glen Ditchfield gjditchfield@acm.org
Sun, 05 Jan 2003 08:50:08 -0600


[Forwarded from a thread in gnucash-user:]

On January 4, 2003 05:32 pm, Dale Alspach wrote:
> While you cannot turn off double entry accounting you can make it
> fairly painless to use.
>
> For a checkbook setup make three toplevel accounts (type):
>
> Checking account (bank)
> Income (income)
> Expenses (expense)

... and Opening Balances (equity) for the opening balance?

>
> Put the default mode to be single line. Only open the checking
> account and make all transactions from it. For any checks, ATM
> withdrawals, bill pays, etc. use Expenses as the the other
> account (typing the letter e should fill it in ). For deposits use
> Income as the other account. If things are setup correctly, all
> entries should go something like this:
> ...
> (To the documentation writers)
> I hope a description of this type of simple checkbook setup is in
> the documentation somewhere. The question comes up every few
> months on this list. One of the strengths of gnucash is its
> flexibility. It can be used for something as simple as a
> checkbook and as complicated as a small business. It is a good
> idea to offer the accounting novice a simple way to implement
> something he/she already understands. Then provide examples of
> how to upgrade the chart of accounts to track more as needed.

I'd like to see the New Account Hierarchy druid offer this simple hierarchy 
right up front.  It would be a nice, unintimidating way for newcomers to get 
started.