Imbalance-USD

[Colin Law]

On 1 February 2014 21:31, jcard21 xxxxxxx <jcard21+gnucash at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 3:49 PM, Dr. Ray <drray at drraycharles.com> wrote:
>>     I am entering all of my investments from 2013 for the first time,
>> however each time I enter it, the value of "Imbalance-USD" increases. I am
>> manually entering the security and placing an opening balance value as of
>> 12/31/2013."
>
> http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-guide/oview-features1.html#oview-featuresaccounting2
>
> Double Entry: Every transaction must debit one account and credit
> others by an equal amount. This ensures the "books balance" - that the
> difference between income and expense exactly equals the sum of all
> bank, cash, stock and other assets.

To add further explanation I believe it is usual to setup opening
balances using a transfer from an account Equity:Retained Earnings.
Because you did not specify an account when you set them up GC has
used the imbalance account.  You can correct this by opening the
imbalance account then for each item there click on the transaction,
click on the Split button at the top of the window then edit the split
showing the imbalance account, changing it to the retained earnings
account and hit Enter.  It will then disappear from the imablance
account.

Colin