Check register questions

[John Ralls]

On Aug 22, 2012, at 1:42 PM, Mike Morris <twriterext at gmail.com> wrote:

> From Help Manual:  Description field. This field is used to enter either a
> payee or other description for the transaction.
> 
> Is there no way to enter a list of Payees?
> 
> Is there no way to enter a description separate from the payee?
> 
> For example, a payee might be King Soopers (a grocery store), or Whole
> Foods (another grocery store).
> 
> If I buy groceries, I want that description associated with the payee and
> transaction, and I want to see monthly totals for each payee for each
> "description."
> 
> If I buy gas for the car from the grocery store, I want that description
> associated with the payee and transaction.
> 
> I want to be able to see monthly totals for that payee for both
> descriptions (groceries and gas).  Is this possible?  If so how?  I have
> spent a lot of time combing through the Help Manual and the Tutorial, but,
> if the answer is there, I can't see it.

It's in there, but you're missing an essential fact that's explained in the Tutorial: Gnucash is a double-entry accounting program. You create expense accounts for Groceries and everything else that you would use as categories in a simpler program and use those as the transfer accounts.

Regards,
John Ralls