How much detail?

[Chris Bare]

> I am trying to get Gnucash set up so I can replace Quicken.   I have come up
> with two questions, well I actually have more, but right now, these are the
> most pressing.

I made the same switch at the beginning of the year because Quicken was
forcing me to buy an upgrade to keep using it for online banking.

> 1.  How granular should I be?  I am using this for home record keeping.  No
> business, just household expenses.  So, when I go to Walmart, and buy a boat
> load of things ranging from groceries to hardware, how granulated should I
> be when posting it?

This is really up to you and your accountant, but for me, I lump a lot of
things together if I don't care to have it reported seperately or if it
doesn't need to be seperated out for tax purposes.

> 2.  In quicken, I do a lot of online bank like downloading transactions,
> paying bills, and generally managing my checking accounts.  With Gnucash, do
> I need to download these transactions, save them, then import them into my
> existing accounts?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing now. If your bank lets you download
statements in a format Gnucash can import you should be good to go. I am using
OFX formats and have had no problem so far. Your gnucash has to be built with
OFX enabled to get the import OFX menu.

I use my bank's web-based bill paying, so I just import the checks along with
everything else once a month. I find I have to take a little more care to
verify that transactions are going to the right places than I did in Quicken,
but it's not too bad.
-- 
Chris Bare
chris at bareflix.com