What is the difference between an account and a sub-account?

[Andrew Sackville-West]

On Sat, Jan 26, 2008 at 12:52:46PM -0800, Scott Simpson wrote:
> I'm trying to convert from Quicken to GnuCash and I have some questions:
> 
> 1. What is the difference between an Account and a Subaccount? This
> doesn't seem to be discussed in the documentation. I'll tell you why I
> am confused. An Account can contain other Accounts. That is fine.
> Accounts can either be interior nodes (a "logical" sub-account) or
> leaves (an account with actual data). However, in GnuCash, Subaccount
> seems to be a particular "type" of account. That is, when I right
> click on an Account, I get a menu that says "Open Account" or "Open
> Subaccounts". But what is a Subaccount if everything is just an
> Account?! If I select this entry, I get a weird tab with a plus in it
> which really confuses me.

Wow! Cool feature I'd never noticed before. So, when you select open
"Subaccounts" it just appears to create a special registe view that
shows the subaccounts of that particular account. That doesn't mean
they are special accounts in any way, just that its a particular way
to view the txns. 

> 
> 2. How would I represent a cafeteria plan (flexible spending account)
> in the A - L = SE equation? Would I create two accounts for this?

a cafeteria plan (you contribute, right?) is an asset like
any other. When you make expenses that are reimbursed out of that
account, the asset gets reduced. 

A
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