The mother of all newbie questions: how do I start? :o)

[Roberto Meyer]

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Hola, Robert C. Ramsdell III escribi=F3 el 20/06/2002 09:36:44:

>I'll take a crack at it.  Think of _every_ transaction as a transfer from 
>one account to another.  A few simple examples:
>
>If you are just starting up and want to enter the initial balance of an 
>account, then go to the 'Equity' account (I actually created a 'child' 
>account called 'opening balances'), and create a transaction.  The date is 
>the date you are starting, the transfer field will contain the name of 
>account you are transferring to, and then put the opening balance of that 
>account in the Increase field.

First of all, thanks to everybody (Todd, Joseph - i'll take a look at it, 
Robert(s), and Ben)  You're very helpful.

I thought my equity account was asking for a transfer _to_itself_, not to 
_another_ account.  I understood equity accounts were special as income 
are: they don't register where do money come from, it just was an 
orientation problem :-)

Well, it's obvious gnucash is going to dig up some math.  I'm very happy 
registering transfers in my d-o-u-b-l-e e-n-t-r-y GNUCash system (wow!, 
this is going to impress my coworkers tomorrow! :-)

Thanks again,

--
Roberto


>To record salary income, create a transaction in the account you are 
>depositing the money in.  The transfer field will then contain the account 
>'Income:Salary' (or some-such).  The Deposit field will contain the amount 
>of 
>the salary.
>
>To record your phone bill (for example), create a new transaction in the 
>account you use to pay bills.  The Transfer field will contain the account 
>'Expenses:Phone'.  The Withdrawal field will contain the the amount of the 
>expense.  If you pay with a check, use the Num field for the check number.
>
>In each of the above examples, create the new transaction by simply 
>starting 
>to type in the first empty line at the bottom of the account.   Also, if 
>you 
>go to the Transfer account in each case, you will see a matching 
>transaction, 
>with the the Transfer account name reversed.  You may find the names of 
>the 
>Deposit and Withdrawal fields change from account to account.  In addition 
>it 
>may be a bit confusing whether the field represent an increase or decrease 
>in 
>your fortune.  This is because gnucash changes the sense of things from 
>account to account to keep balances positive.  Thus a positive liability 
>is 
>actually a debt, while a positive asset is money you own.
>
>Lastly, this all gets slightly more complicated with splits (transactions 
>with multiple accounts), and much more complicated with securities.
>
>Clear as mud=3F
>
>Robert
>
>On Wednesday 19 June 2002 10:32 pm, Roberto Meyer wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> I don't know how to open the balance! :oP
>
> I setup all the accounts I imagined I'll need, but now, how do I begin=3F
>
> I read gnucash's help and I understood I need to create an equity account
> to do it, but gnucash keeps asking for a double entry record.  I suppose
> (never took accounting at school, hope you'll not notice :-) I must create
> some kind of Income account, don't I=3F
>
> TAL for your answers,
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