book options, A/P use

Stephanie Jordan customeyessji at gmail.com
Mon Sep 19 01:50:24 EDT 2011


I am a new user of GnuCash (on Win7, 64-bit), and all I know about 
accounting is what I've read in your Concept Guide and Manual. I must 
say, your Concept Guide seems to be a good primer on accounting and is 
the first explanation of double-entry accounting that even made a 
glimmer of sense!

So, I am trying (again) to properly set up books for my very small 
business. Aside from the accounting questions I have, there is a set-up 
question that I cannot find the answer to. Actually, I found a panel of 
options for which I can find no instructions.

File|Properties leads to a panel called Book Options, and is mentioned 
in *12.3.2. Company Registration*. Yet that panel also contains a tab 
called Counters, which seems to contradict:


          12.6.6. Assign Starting Invoice Number

    */There is no easy way to assign an automatic starting invoice
    number./* *|GnuCash|* starts with number 1 and increments from
    there. You can manually type an invoice number into the text box
    each time you create an invoice, but this gets tiring and sooner or
    later leads to duplicate numbers.

    You can change the starting invoice number if it is important you.
    */There is no user interface to change the number/* at this time.
    You have to hand edit your XML data file. The relevant entry is in
    the "counters" section near the beginning of the file. The file must
    be re-opened after editing.

The hover says something about a /printf-style format string /that I 
have not yet googled. Also, the context menu includes Input Methods 
(which seems to mean language options) and Insert Unicode Control Character.

Since design and graphics is my thing, I am dying to know how to use 
these before I continue setting up my customers, vendors and customized 
invoices.

And, to disguise an accounting question as a "how-to-use" question:
Am I supposed to use A/Payable to enter every business purchase I make? 
Even if I make payment at the time of purchase?  I think that in 
previous bookkeeping attempts I was trying to enter my purchases 
directly into their expense accounts (categories) because I thought it 
was not a "payable" since I had already paid for it.

Thank you so much for your program, and your accounting tutorial. And 
thank you for embracing the open source model and sharing your expertise 
with the rest of us.

Stephanie

-- 


/CustomEyesSJI at gmail.com <mailto:customeyessji at gmail.com> 936.525.8989
/

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