Order of split transactions

[John Ralls]

> On Dec 12, 2015, at 7:16 AM, Joseph Hesse <joehesse at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> In the GnuCash tutorial, Chapter 4 - Split Transaction Example, the split transactions for a salary and tax deductions start with the Checking asset and doing the splits from there.
> 
> I tried it another way, by starting with the Income:Salary account, entered the total salary and then used splits to deduct the various taxes. The only difference I saw was that in the Memo field in Income:Salary where the transfer is to Income:Checking, the Memo text did not transfer.
> 
> Is it a wash or is one way better than the other?

If everything is in the same currency/commodity it makes no difference. When the currencies differ, the account in which you create the transaction determines the transaction's currency and all of the conversions from other currencies will be to that currency. To protect your sanity you'll want to make sure that you always start a multi-currency transaction in an account denominated in the book's default currency. If you don't it can get quite confusing managing the exchange rates.

However, Checking should be an Asset account, not Income.

Memo text is associated with the split and will display only in split view. Description is the field associated with the transaction and will display in any view in all registers.

Regards,
John Ralls