Help request to start using GNUcash effectively

[Deepa Vivek]

Hello!

 

I downloaded GNUCash and as of 1st Jan 2010 tried to start off doing all my
personal budgeting using this.

 

My monthly income and spend pattern is as follows:

 

1.       I have a couple of credit card accounts which accrue all monthly
expenses (includes groceries, insurance, petrol, official expenses which I
get reimbursed for by my company on a monthly basis and every other category
of expense)

2.       I have a couple of bank accounts one of which is my salary account
and the other is a mortgage account from where I pay my weekly mortgages

3.       At the beginning of every month, I transfer a sum equivalent to my
monthly mortgage expense to my mortgage account (from my salary account)

4.       Then once a month I transfer money to my credit card company (again
from my salary account)

5.       Besides this I withdraw (a couple of times a month) small sums of
money for cash expenses

 

What I set up in GNUCash (Five parent accounts namely - Assets, Equity,
Expenses, Liabilities, Income)

 

1.       I created a couple of credit card accounts under the 'parent'
Liability account

2.       Also created a salary account and a reimbursement account (for
official expenses) under the Income 'parent' account

3.       About 17 expense accounts for all monthly expenses under the
Expense 'parent' account

4.       My bank accounts under the Asset 'parent' account

 

Next

1.       I imported my credit card statements in .qif format to GNUcash
using the GNUcash utility

2.       During the import, in the section "Match payees/memos to GNUCash
accounts" I matched each payee/memo to the appropriate expense account using
the "Change GNU account" tab

3.       On conclusion the whole bit was imported successfully

 

Questions

 

1.       Is the process I have followed to get started (above) correct?

2.       As my bank and credit card accounts were imported into GNUCash
after exporting the online data to a .qif file, should I not assign opening
balances for them? If so, how is this done?

3.       As I am interested in tracking expenses on a monthly basis, what is
the best way to set up the above accounts to capture and manage
transactions? Should I start afresh from say 1st Jan 2010 or can I start
from any previous date?

Regards

 

Vivek