account types ?

[Dale Alspach]

The account type is important in double entry accounting because everything
must preserve assets = equity + liability and every credit has a
corrresponding debit. This is sometimes a little
counter-intuitive in accountant's language, e.g., a debit to an asset
account increases its balance; a debit to an income account decreases its
balance. For example if you get paid $1 and put it in your checking
account, you credit an income account $1 and debit  your checking account
$1. Both increase by one dollar. If you had made your checking account an
income account it would have gone down a dollar.

If you don't want to be bothered with all this, you can hide the accounting
labels and proceed intuitively in gnucash. This will work pretty well.

Dale Alspach