Can Gnucash Be Used As Single Entry?

JL Marcos ENDO jlmaendo at outlook.com
Sat Jan 23 21:41:22 EST 2016


Thank you, Mike. Thank you do your reply.

I have zero knowledge of accounting, so I admit I didn't understand your description of what Gnucash does nor your explanation of how my using a checking account exclusively could be considered part of dual entry accounting 😵

Income is once a month, direct-deposited into business checking account.

Expenses are about, say 30 a year.

Most expenses are paid for with dedicated business credit card, whose balance is paid off in full each month with money from business checking account.

A few expenses (tax payments, tax withholdings) will be paid by whatever method IRS approves out of checking account. Business is brand new so no tax payments made quite yet.

Finally, two business expenses (business use of personal phone, business mileage she driving personal vehicle) will actually be reimbursements transferred from my business checking account into my personal checking account.

I like simplicity, so I'm looking for the way/product I can record these transactions without unnecessary steps nor complex routines.

What would you use if you had these needs and also wanted simplicity and effectiveness? 😏

Thank you very much.

JL Marcos
JLMA ENDO LLC
________________________________
From: Mike or Penny Novack<mailto:mpnovack at mtdata.com>
Sent: ‎1/‎23/‎2016 21:04
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: Can Gnucash Be Used As Single Entry?

On 1/23/2016 4:09 PM, JL Marcos ENDO wrote:
> My business is very simple, with about 30 expense entries a year entries and one income entry a month.
> No loans, no mortgages, no rentals or real estate, no inventory.
>
> I believe Single Entry system is all I need.
>
> Can I use Gnucash that way?
>
> thank you

No, gnucash is a partial automation (virtual journal, autoposting) of
standard double entry bookkeeping.

The thirty expense entries, how are they paid? (cash from your pocket or
a checking account, etc.)
That one income item, where does it go? (cash into your pocket or a
checking account, etc.)

For a moment, assume the latter. Then that checking account would be the
other side of each of those expense or income transactions. That's the
"double entry" part (any transaction is entered into at least two ledger
accounts). But you would enter that transaction in just one of the
accounts (and simply indicate what the other is). You wouldn't be
entering anything twice. VIRTUAL journal*.

Michael D Novack

* In the old pen and ink on paper days, a transaction would first be
entered into the journal. THEN it would be posted into each of the
affected ledger account. Gnucash does all that (backwards) entered from
just one of the affected ledger accounts.
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