newbie usage question

[Dave Peticolas]

"Chris Friedl" writes:
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
> 
> Hi gnucashers
> 
> So far I'm having fun with gnucash. But now I've hit a snag which is =
> making me wonder whether I've been using the package properly. The case =
> is this:
> 
> I have an income account and an expense account. The income is a salary. =
> The expense is a loan. Also I have a bank account and a loan account. My =
> salary goes into the bank account and loan repayments go into the loan =
> account. So far, pretty simple I think.
> 
> But I'm not clear on how to enter a loan repayment. Perhaps this is =
> obvious to someone (I hope so) but not to me. If I simply enter a =
> transfer of funds from the bank account to the loan account, I have a =
> credit in my bank account and a debit in the loan account. This shows =
> the net cash flow nicely. But how do I get this to show up in my income =
> and expense accounts? The only way I can think of is the following:
> 
> credit bank acc & debit income acc
> credit income acc & debit expense acc
> credit expense acc & debit loan acc
> 
> The net result is credit bank acc & debit loan acc. as expected, but =
> nothig shows up in my income and expense accounts since the debits and =
> credits cancel each other.

Repaying a loan isn't generally an expense -- you aren't buying
anything, you're paying money that you owe. Thus, loan accounts
are usually of type 'Liability'.

But if you do keep it as an expense, simply crediting the bank
account and debiting the expense account should make the transfer
'show up' in your expense accounts. The income account shouldn't
be affected by a loan repayment since you aren't receiving any
income.

dave