income accounts

[Colin Law]

On 23 September 2015 at 20:41,  <bugreport19621012 at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> I am new to double-entry bookkeeping.
>
> I have several accounts with LittleCreditUnion. (Names are changed.)
>
> In GnuCash, I have named these accounts:
>
> Assets:LittleCreditUnion:LittleCreditUnionCHK (checking)
>
> Assets:LittleCreditUnion:LittleCreditUnionSAV (savings)
>
> Assets:LittleCreditUnion:LittleCreditUnionCERTIFICATE (certificate of
> deposit)
>
> When my LittleCreditUnion statement tells me that I received
>
> $5.55 dividend associated with Assets:LittleCreditUnion:LittleCreditUnionSAV
>
> and
>
> $25.01 dividend associated with
> Assets:LittleCreditUnion:LittleCreditUnionCERTIFICATE
>
> and I want to record them in my GnuCash register, to what account should I
> best attribute the income?

I have an account called Income:Dividend Income, so when I receive a
dividend it goes from that account into the appropriate Asset account.
The total of the income account is, as you say, the total of all
dividend income.  For me that is of little interest, what matters is
that the value in the savings account increases by the appropriate
amount each time.  I could imagine others might need know the total
dividend income for tax purposes for example.

Colin