Split transaction: deposit/withdrawal meaning reversed?

[Bob Taylor]

Dear Jc,

Perhaps it will help to explain something which may not have been made clear.  The register in GC is used for two really quite different functions.  I know folks here think they are doing "double entry" bookkeeping, but in a double-entry system one made first an entry in a Journal (so-called because kept daily) and then posted the entries to income, expense or capital accounts (that is to say, the amounts were written on ledger pages).  The journal entry was complete and balanced.  The account entries (called in the text books, T-accounts, because they look like a capital T) had only a date and amount and perhaps a page and line reference to the Journal so that the transaction could be traced back.  (Manual bookkeeping was a very great deal of work.).

GC replaces the Journal and T-accounts with the Register.  Each entry in the register represents an entry in the T-account, but shows also the Journal entry.  This is readily apparent when you press the Split button, which opens a sort of window onto the Journal entry.

Actually if you open the General Ledger window on the Tools menu you will see what amounts to the General Journal. One could use it for that purpose but in GC one can make a journal entry in any register and the entire transaction will appear in the register for every account affected.

Let me add that the Journal/ T-account concept is fundamental to accounting even now, although no one keeps books that way any more.  See any financial accounting text book.

I do hope my explanation helps clear up your confusion and does not add to it.  If the latter, please ignore.

Regards and Best Wishes, Bob


On 4/5/2012 7:01 AM, Jean-Christian Imbeault wrote:
> I'm new to Gnucash and currently trying to follow the very helpful
> online tutorial. I've gotten to section 4.2.2 which covers split
> transactions and need some help understanding what's happening when I
> create a split transaction.
>
> To help illustrate why I'm a bit confused ... when I want to deposit
> into my Assets:Checking account, I simply enter an amount in the
> Deposit column and chose a Transfer account. This will deposit into my
> Checking account and withdraw from the Transfer account.
>
> However when I create a split transaction the meaning of the deposit
> and withdrawal columns seem to be reversed. For example in the 4.4.2
> section, for the salary deposit example transaction, I need to enter a
> withdrawal from Income:Salary, and deposits into various Expense:
> accounts.
>
> If I were to try and do this as multiple simple transactions, I would
> do a deposit into Asset:Checking with the transfer account being
> Income:Salary.
>
> Why is it a deposit when doing a simple transaction, but a withdrawal
> when doing a split transaction? It's a bit confusing and I'd love to
> understand this.
>
> Sorry for the newbie question, I'm guessing it's probably been asked
> before. (I did try to search the archives but the search tools seems
> to be broken at the moment).
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jc