GnuCash vs. Quicken

Seth Gordon sethg@ropine.com
04 Dec 2002 16:42:38 -0500


On Wed, 2002-12-04 at 13:06, thomas.moersch@accesscomm.ca wrote:
> I have been using Quicken for many years but am now considering switching
> to GnuCash.  I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my mind around
> double-entry accounting.  I asked my accountant friend about this and he
> said "Forget it - keep on using Quicken!  For your personal finances
> double-entry accounting is overkill and you will soon get tired of it!"
> What are your opinions?  I am having a hard-enough time keeping up-to-date
> with my single-entry Quicken accounting.  Is GnuCash right for me?

The only hard thing about double-entry bookkeeping with Gnucash, in my
experience, was getting the signs right in my credit-card accounts when
entering balances for reconciliation.

Double-entry bookkeeping is based on the principle that money is always
going *from* some account *to* some other account.  Your paycheck goes
from "Income--Acme Corporation" to "Checking Account".  Your credit-card
purchase goes from "Credit Card--VISA" to "Expense--Clothing".  Etc. 

-- 
"If you have a flag that's bigger than your entire house, please do
not drape the thing over your roof, so it looks like a gigantic red,
white and blue dust cover."  --Lynda B.
// seth gordon // sethg@ropine.com // http://ropine.com/sethg/cv.html //