how to automatically update equity account as each transaction is entered?

[DaveC49]

Hi Francis,
While Assets - Liabilities = Equity  is generally true in accounting it is
implemented in a slightly different form as follows.
Assets = Liabilities + Equity + (Income - Expenses).

Assets , Liabilities and Equity accounts are normally referred to as the
permanent accounts because their balances carry over beyond the current
accounting period, i.e. from past years to present year to future years if
using an annual accounting period

Income and Expenses are actually temporary Equity accounts. At the end of
the current period, they are normally closed( i.e. their balances are
transferred) to an Equity:Retained Earnings account.

In the transaction you have described the $1 will be debited to the asset
account and the credit side of the transaction will be to an Income account
e.g. Income:MoneyFound. When you enter the transaction assuming you do it
from the Asset account register window, if you click on a new line , enter
the transaction date, enter a comment in the Memo field about the
transaction and then press <TAB> a new line will open up. By default the
Account in the Account field will be your Asset account (e.g. usually a bank
account or an account for handling undeposited funds ). If you enter $1.00
in the debit column and hit <TAB> again a second new line will open up. If
you click in the Account field in this line a symbol like a rounded square
with a minus sign appears. Click on that to get a dropdown list of all your
accounts and select your Income ( or an appropriate sub account of Income).
By default the $1.00 will appear in the Credit column.Your transaction
should consist of three lines, the top line showing a debit of $1 and the
balance of the Asset account. The second and third line show the split of
the transaction, i.e. the debit and credit entries and the accounts which
each of these components of the transaction affects. Hit Enter and the
information is recorded. If you click on the new line or any other
transaction in that account, the split should close and you will get what
was displayed on the top line with the Income Account displayed in the
account column indicating the other account affected by the corresponding
credit part of the transaction along with your Asset account.

All transactions consist of one or more debit entries and one or more credit
entries where the sum of the debit entries equals the sum of the credit
entries for that transaction.  I would read the documentation section on
entering transactions and possibly read the Wikipedia article on double
entry book keeping/ accounting .  

The process for spending money is similar but now your asset account is
credited by the amount of the transaction and an expense account is debited
by the transaction amount. Transactions may affect  more than two accounts
for example where a GST or VAT tax applies. I would get the basic concepts
and operations working on two accounts and read the documentation on splits
before attempting more complex transactions.
Good luck
David



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