Setting up mortgage including closing costs etc

[Peter Underwood]

My mortgage started in late 2005. At the start, details of the mortgage are
included in the HUD closing document which include the costs/fees of setup
and a partial payment of the mortgage for remaining part of the month during
which closing occurred. The escrow account is for Tax and Insurance but does
not show a breakdown for each (although subsequently when they raise the
escrow amount to cope with rises in Tax and/or insurance they show the
breakdown after that change).

I wanted to set up Gnucash accounts from the beginning of 2011 to replace
what I was using before (self-written macros in Excel). But for the
mortgage, it would be sensible to show it from the start.

Two questions:

1. When I use the mortgage setup tool in Gnucash, it sets up all the SXs but
I can then neither insert what happened at the start nor the changes in
escrow amounts. How do I do this? (I assume this would be the same even if I
was just starting the mortgage.)

2. One solution is obviously to create the mortgage account with the tool,
then insert transactions manually for dates in the past. When I try this, it
fails. Does this mean that in ANY of my sub-accounts I can't "insert"
transactions I forgot to enter earlier? If I CAN do so, how?

Thanks for all the help - there's a lot of reading in the Help files, FAQs
and List Archives and I am only touching the sides! So forgive me if the
answers are elsewhere - I couldn't find them.

*Sorry if this is a repeat but I am not sure this got posted to the list
instead of going straight to the archive without response. I have continued
scouring the website, FAQs and help files and can't find out the answer.*
*
*
*Does anyone at least know how to insert earlier transactions as that would
solve the problem assuming the SXs recalculate after an insertion?*