help

[Maf. King]

On Sunday 18 Mar 2007, 75volvo at comcast.net wrote:
> I entered 6 months worth of checkbook transactions into the 1.something
> version of Gnucash.  Then upgraded to the current version.
>
> I made some (I believe) errors in the choices as to account setup.  All of
> the transactions are accurate as far as amounts goes but they ended up with
> meanings that I don't get.  For instance.  I ended up an account called
> opening balances.  This is alright I suppose but all of the deposits that
> have landed there show up as a withdrawal and are not in the check book. So
> instead of the expected values balancing I just have negative values.
>

Hi,

You should have exactly one transaction between each "real" account (which 
existed & had a balance before you started to use GC) and opening balances, 
to set the balance in that account when you started using GC.   

The total of  opening balances isn't very useful, except as a snapshot of your 
financial position when you started to use GC.

> What I would like to do is somehow (without re-entering everything) sort of
> start over.  Maybe export the whole thing to a spreadsheet and after
> simplifying everything import it all back and then assign values that work.

Hmm, sounds like more work than tinkering within gnucash.  Not even sure if 
you could do such a thing.

> I have also now an account called accounts receivable.  This is a good
> thing to have once I send out some bills but a bunch of bank deposits have
> landed there and I can't seem to edit them in a way that changes them to
> straight income.

IANAA, but you should have transactions in an A/R account like this for each 
invoice you have written:

Income:Invoices		£100
Asset:A/R	£100

...

Asset:A/R			£100
Bank:Checking	£100

That is to say that the income happens when you create the invoice, not when 
funds hit your bank account.

>  I tried paying them but I could not find that they showed
> up somewhere else as a positive value. I want to run my business from this
> software and I believe once I get past the original setup it will work.

Have you got your head around double-entry bookkeeping?  Every transaction has 
to balance to some other account, so a payment will show up elsewhere as a 
positive value. I haven't read the concepts guide in ages, but I think it 
goes into some detail about this.

GC copes with running my business, so take heart, & good luck!

HTH,
Maf.