setting up a car loan

[Harold]

Thanks, I will try to work from this. If I understand what you are saying, don't bother with trying to put in an opening balance when setting up the account. 

So, to be clear, should I set up an asset account for the value of the car?

All I really want to do is set up the loan account so that I can apply a payment to the loan balance and also split off the interest paid.

Is GC capable of figuring the interest each month? I have a spreadsheet that will show me an amortization table and can get it from there.

Hope my questions aren't too confusing about what I am trying to do (the highlighted paragraph). I just don't want to create any incorrect entries.

Thanks,
Harold

--- On Thu, 2/10/11, Phil Frost <indigo at bitglue.com> wrote:

From: Phil Frost <indigo at bitglue.com>
Subject: Re: setting up a car loan
To: "Harold" <hh6199 at yahoo.com>
Cc: "Gnucash" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2011, 10:08 AM

On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 07:55:38AM -0800, Harold wrote:
> Yes, I have but like I said, when I get to the 'Transfer Type', I am
> stumped as what to do at that point.

I'm not sure where you would encounter a "Transfer Type". I'm not in
front of gnucash now, but I guess this is in some sort of dialog you are
encountering to set the opening balance for the account, before you get
to entering the loan transaction.

Ignore that. All an "opening balance" will do for you is create a
transaction in the account, usually transfering funds from
Equity:Opening Balances. It's an entirely optional convienence thing
that doesn't help you in this case.

See this example:

http://code.gnucash.org/docs/guide/figures/loans_mortgage2.png

from this page:

http://code.gnucash.org/docs/guide/loans_mortgage1.html