Newbie's experience with gnucash

Eric Schwartz emschwar@rmi.net
Sun, 15 Oct 2000 23:43:25 -0600


I decided to install gnucash, as I spend most of my time in linux, and
rebooting to Windows just to run Quicken simply means that my accounts
all get out of date quickly, and so I fall behind.

The problem is, I cannot seem to wrap my head around gnucash.  I'm
not claiming I'm an accounting god, or anything (for one thing, this
is the first I've seen of double-entry accounting), but some things I
just can't understand!

Here's what I did:

* Started up gnucash

This part I think I have down. :)

* Farted around for a bit, ended up creating an Assets category,
  with "HPCU Checking" and "HPCU Savings" accounts under it for
  tracking the balance of my checking and savings accounts in my credit
  union.

Is this right?  I think so... both accounts are of type "bank".

* Downloaded my account history as far back as it goes (July, 1999)
  from my bank as QIF files (They offer that and a CSV format).

Should I have picked the CSV?  They also offer Quicken 98 and 99 version
of QIFs.  Does it matter which one I use?

* Set the opening balance of my accounts.

This is where double-entry bookkeeping rears its ugly head.  I don't
understand how to say, "This account started off having this much money
in it."  When I do that, it creates an "Imbalance-USD" account with the
opposite amount of money as I just put in my checking and savings accounts.

Why is this?  There's not a source for any of this-- the money, as far
as I can account for it (which ain't far), is just there.  Sure, it came
from somewhere, but I don't know where, and I don't care.  What matters
(to me) is that gnucash seems to want to draw it from somewhere that
doesn't exist!  How do I tell it, "There is no source for the money, it's
just there!  Just leave it alone and work from there!"?

* Imported the savings and checking QIF files, assigning them to the
  corresponding accounts.

This is the even more confusing thing, though I have a feeling if I
understood the problem I'm having above, I'd understand this one.
Let's start with my checking account.  I select the File->Import QIF...
menu item, and up comes the dialog.  I type in the filename, select the
account I want it to go in, and make sure that's reflected under
the Accounts tab.  Then I go to the Categories tab.  It has the exact
same number of transactions as were in my checking QIF file.  It wants
a GNUCash Account Name.  Why?  What's this for?  I don't get it.  All I
want to do is just import the transaction list into GNUCash.  Why do
I have to give it an account for "Categories"?  I don't know what it means
to put anything there.  So for now I just put "Checking account".

So I repeat for my savings account.  Only now when I check Categories,
it's apparently added all the transactions in my savings account to this
list.  Again, I have no idea what this means, only now it seems "Checking
account" isn't appropriate so I put "Random" in there.

* I click "OK".

Much whirring and chunking of hard drive ensues.  When I'm done, the
balances in my Checking and Savings accounts are accurate, but now I
have a Random account with (apparently) the inverse of all the 
transactions I just imported.  I don't need this, but I can't figure
out how to make it go away.  Okay, I discover that's not true, I can
delete it, but I'm not sure why it's there in the first place.  Am I
doing something bad by deleting it?  And how can I make that damned
"Imbalance-USD" account go away?  Nothing's imbalanced-- my accounts
are (finally!) set up with all the right data in them.  So why is
gnucash telling me there's an imbalance?

There seems to be a major paradigm shift involved in using gnucash,
and I'm not sure what the benefit of making it is.  As far as I can
tell, double-entry accounting is just single-entry accounting with
everything written twice.  What's the point?  It seems gnucash is a
very handy-looking program for CPAs, but for a guy like me, who finds
it tedious and irritating to balance his chequebook every couple of
months or so, it's a royal pain that does all sorts of mysterious
things, refuses to explain what or why, and tells me it's all for my
own good.  Is there a simpler way to use this program, or am I doomed
to using Quicken until I go back to school and get a degree in
accounting?  (My career counsellors always said I should go into
accounting-- I'm beginning to think they're right; at least then I
might understand how this program works!)

I guess the main point I'm trying to make throughout all this is
something I learned in a course on Information-Driven Design (of
software interfaces): The customer (me, in this case) doesn't want
to learn to use your program.  They want to get their job (in my
case, tracking my income and expenditures) done.  To throw up your
hands and say, "It can't be helped; it's hard" is missing the point--
the program ought to be usable without lots of extra knowledge.

I don't really enjoy it when a program makes me feel stupid; I know
how to use Quicken, and I generally feel like it makes it easy to
keep track of my accounts-- yes, I use it like a glorified checkbook,
but as far as I can tell, that's all I need.  Is there any way to, oh
I don't know, ease into double-entry?  Or am I doomed to feeling like
a grade-A moron until my aunt the CPA can make time to give me a lecture?

-=Eric
-- 
Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey
cage.						       -- H.L. Mencken