feature/bug?

Matthew Vanecek mevanecek at yahoo.com
Wed Sep 10 08:35:36 CDT 2003


On Wed, 2003-09-10 at 03:35, Jon Lapham wrote:
> David Bobroff wrote:
> > I've not been following gnucash for some time.  I've just dug up some data
> > to get a checking account back in order.  I only have about a dozen
> > transactions to enter.  After entering a few checks and a couple of
> > deposits, I got a dialog box popping up saying that the current transaction
> > was not balanced.  What does that mean?  

> Now, having given you these links, let me see if I can help you get 
> started.  You need at least 2 accounts for every transaction, and money 
> cannot be created from nowhere.  You cannot simply start using GnuCash 
> by moving money from your checking account to an expense account.  Why 
> not?  Because GnuCash does not know where that money come from 
> originally.  Simplifying a bit here, money can only arrive in GnuCash 
> via an "Income" account, or the "Equity:Opening Balances" account.  You 
> need to put money in your accounts becore you can move it around.
> 
> So, typically, people *start* by setting their initial balances in the 
> bank account as a transaction from "Equity:Opening Balances" to 
> "Assets:Savings".  "Equity::Opening Balances" is a special account to 
> deal with just this very situation.
> 

The 2-account requirement could probably be better explained a little
bit.  Some people may think you actually have to *enter* two accounts,
which is not strictly true.  The account register in which you are
working counts as 1 account, and the transfer category (account) you
select for the expense is the 2nd account.

E.g., for a salary deposit to checking, you would open the Checking
register.  There's your first account.  Then, you enter date, check num
if needed, description, and for Transfer you would select Income, and
then record the appropriate deposit amount and perhaps a note.  It's
really much less complicated than many people believe.  Following the
above steps, you have successfully entered a double-entry account.

If you are using multiple Splits, of course, then the sum of the credits
in the transaction must equal the sum of the debits.  If they don't, you
get the error message you described above.  I suspect this is what is
happening to you, since generally in the simple scenario above you don't
have opportunity to 'unbalance' a transaction...

HTH,
-- 
Matthew Vanecek
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
********************************************************************************
For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me.
I'm always getting in the way of something...
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