GnuCash Income - How to manage?

[Aaron Laws]

On Wed, Jul 8, 2015 at 1:33 PM, SamuelHolmes82 <samuel.holmes6 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> I have been playing about with GnuCash.  I think it is an excellent program
> but I need a bit of advice on how to manage balances etc.
>
> I know that GnuCash uses "double entry" accounting.  I know what this
> means,
> and I understand that there have to be two entries for a single
> transaction.
> I get this.
>

It's clear that you don't quite get it yet, but patiently persevere, and
you will.

>
> What I am finding difficult to figure out however, is how to manage Income
> in my accounts.  Managing expenses is simple enough - I just have an
> account
> called "expenses", which starts at £0.00 balance, and fills up with entries
> as I record transactions.  Income, however, will be a bit more complicated.
> Let's assume for the sake of argument that I will never know exactly how
> much my weekly income will be.  Therefore I cannot just create an account
> that has an amount X in it, which I use as my income.  My income account
> will need to be empty at the start of each month,


This betrays a misunderstanding. The revenue account for monies earned
starts at 0 when you open your books, but never goes back to zero until you
close the books.


> and as I get paid, or
> other funds come in, then these will be noted in the "Income" account.
> However I am not sure how I should manage this - given the double entry
> nature of GnuCash I am always left with an "Imbalance-GBP" account that I
> can do nothing to get rid of.  As I am hopefully being clear about, I
> understand EXACTLY why this account exists, and I know that in order to get
> rid of it, the imbalances have to be removed.
>
> How then should I manage Income in GNUCash?
>

When you make money, the transaction should be DR: revenue ("income")
account, CR asset account.

For example, I am paid monthly, and the transaction looks like this
(account types in parentheses):

DR Federal Income Taxes (expense)
DR Local Income Taxes (expense)
DR Insurance (expense)
DR HSA (asset -- bank account used for medical expenses)
DR Checking (asset)
DR Parking Permit (expense)
CR salary (revenue)

Hopefully that helps a bit, but feel free to ask more questions as there
are plenty of very knowledgeable, kind, patient, warm-hearted, savvy folks
on this list ready and eager to help.