GNUCash Useability

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Mark Phillips wrote:

>It may be hard to believe for some folks on this list, but not everything
>in life requires double entry accounting.....;)
>
>Mark
>
>  
>
Of course not everything in life requires double entry bookkeeping.

But keeping a set of books according to standard accounting practice 
does. So if you operate a business or an organization, have to file 
reports with governmental agencies (and perhaps be audited) then you do 
require double entry bookkeeping.

It should perhaps be noted that the need (for other purposes) has become 
less only with the aid of the computer. Trust me, if you were still back 
in the age of trying to keep financial records pen and ink on paper 
without the aid of  "double entry" you'd have little chance of being 
able to detect and correct errors. That wasn't all that easy even with 
double entry and you had to know lots of tricks/ rules of thumb like "if 
the out of balance is divisible by nine ....." (look for a possible 
shift error).

When I selected gnucash that was a choice of WHICH double entry 
bookkeeping software our organization would use. Not WHETHER double 
entry as otherwise not satisfying legal requirements.

Michael D Novack, FLMI