Set up two different bank accounts

[Kent Dahl]

Norman de Groot wrote:
> I have two separate bank checking accounts.  The gnucash tutorial 
> tells me how to set up a set of top level accounts: income, expense, 
> assets, etc., without naming the overall bank account.
> 
> When I import the transaction data in qif format, I'm asked for the 
> "account name".  If I answer, for example, bank xyz, the data is 
> imported and I see an "unspecified" account and the "bank xyz" top 
> level accounts, and all the other top level accounts.  I can then 
> change the "unspecified" category to one of the other top level 
> categories, e.g., income, expense, etc.
> 
> I would have expected to set up a named account ("bank xyz") and a 
> number of subaccounts, (income, expense, etc.) but gnucash won't let 
> me do that.

Why do you want the income/expense accounts to be specific to that bank?

An expense entry is connected to a bank through the double-entry 
debit/credit postings. That is, when you enter an expense, you enter 
what the money was used on (expense account) and how it was payed (bank 
account).


> Then how can I set up for a different bank account (bank abc)?  I 
> can't set up a new set of top level accounts that applies to bank abc 
> since they are allready specified for bank xyz.
> 
> Surely there must be a way to have any number of named accounts, each 
> with corresponding subaccounts.

What you can do is create a duplicated expense/income hierarchy.
Sample account hierarchy:

* Asset
* * Bank
* * * Bank XYZ
* * * Bank ABC
* Income
* * Income Bank XYZ
* * * XYZ specific income
* * Income Bank ABC
* * * ABC specific income
* Expense
* * Expenses Bank XYZ
* * * XYZ specific expense
etc

But this does look rather cumbersome, especially if more banks appear.

If you could describe the goal you want to reach with the bank specific 
income/expense accounts in more detail, I'm sure someone has a more 
elegant solution.

IANAA, IMHO, etc.

-- 
(\[ Kent Dahl ]/)_    _~_    _____[ http://www.pvv.org/~kentda/ ]_____/~
  ))\_student_/((  \__d L b__/     Master of Science in Technology     )
( \__\_õ|õ_/__/ ) _)  Industrial economics and technology management (
  \____/_ö_\____/ (____engineering.discipline_=_Computer::Technology___)