Maybe I finally understand how to enter split transactions

[Michael Wagner]

OK - just to spell this out a out little more:

1) Click on the transaction line in the Credit Card account, add a 
description, enter Liability:Visa in the transfer, and the total amount 
as a charge.

2) Then click on "Split" and the first line of the split has the 
Liability:Visa selected as the Transfer account, and the total amount.

3) Then I enter the various Expenses as below.

The outcome is the same as if I followed the steps I outlined 
previously, but it saves a step.

What's more interesting is that I think that this this tells me that in 
some ways, transaction (and accounts) are "first class" objects in gnu 
cash, and that Account Registers are in some sense a way viewing 
transactions. It was counter-intuitive to me to add an explicit 
"Liability:Visa" transfer record to the "Liabilities:Visa" register - it 
seemed like I was already in the Visa register.

I can't articulate this quite correctly, but with my previous experience 
in Quicken (and other financial programs), it seemed as though register 
was the first class object, and I was adding transactions to the 
register. It was very odd to me - when I used the longer method - to 
enter a transaction "into" the "Liabilities:Visa register", to create an 
account with no transfer field and no amount, and then add the splits 
that described the transaction, including the split that said "this is a 
charge to Expenses:Visa account for $125".  I thought, "I thought I 
don't need to do that - I'm already in the Visa account."

But that's mostly because my mental construct was wrong. From Quicken, 
et. al, I had thought of register as a collection of transactions, more 
or less decorated with "from" and "to" information. That's not a good 
model for the way that gnucash looks at the world.

It better to think of gnu cash organized as a list of transactions, 
which are in essence relationships between accounts. An Account Register 
is just a convenient tool for selecting and look at accounts.

It's better to think that I was using the Credit Card register as a view 
to create a Transaction that happened to involve the Expenses:Visa 
account, and several others.

This is made clearer by the fact, that even when using the 
"Liabilities:Visa" Account Register, I can create a transaction that has 
nothing to do with the "Liabilities:Visa" account. I just tried this, 
and from the "Liabilities:Visa" register, I created a split transaction 
that move $100 from "Assets:Checking" to "Expenses:Home." When I hit the 
plus sign to enter the transaction, it disappears from the 
"Liabilities:Visa" register - which is correct - and shows up in the 
"Assets:Checking" and "Expenses:Home" registers.

I guess that this is old hat to accounting types, but it's an 
interesting and different (to me) way to understand my financial 
transactions.

Mike



Mike

On 03/21/2015 11:15 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> On 3/21/2015 12:59 AM, Geert Janssens wrote:
>> On Friday 20 March 2015 17:50:04 Michael Wagner wrote:
>>> I spent some time last night trying to enter a Credit Card split
>>> transaction in Chapter 6 of the Concepts manual. I kept paging back
>>> and forth to the paycheck example earier, but I was till confused.
>>>
>>> I think that maybe I understand it now.
>>>
>>> 1) Click on the blank transaction line in the Credit Card account -
>>> add a description and a data, maybe a transaction number - but don't
>>> add any amounts or transfer account information.
>>>
>>> 2) Click on the Split icon.
>>>
>>> 3) In the first split line, select the Liabilty:Visa for transfer, and
>>> add a charge (credit) of $125.
>>>
>>> 4) Tab down to the split line, select Expenses:Groceries for the
>>> transfer, and add an expense (debit) of $80.
>>>
>>> 5) Tab down to the next spit line, select Expenses:Home for the
>>> transfer and add an expense (debit) of $45.
>>>
>>> 6) Click on the + icon, and everything will be folded so that a $125
>>> charge shows up in Visa account - with "-- split transaction --" in
>>> the transfer.
>>>
>>> Is this correct?
> That will work, and if it is what you prefer, continue to use that 
> method.
>
> I normally do one way splits in the reverse order. First enter the 
> unsplit side (which will be for the total amount) and working down, 
> change the amount shown for the other side, entering that account, let 
> gnucash show subtract to show what's left, and repeat till nothing 
> left over.
>
> But when it's a two way split I might do it the way you just described 
> (BOTH debits and credits are split into more than one account)
>
> Michael
>
>
>> That's how it works indeed.
>>
>> Well done, you do understand split transactions now !
>>
>> Geert
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