Why opening balances are in Grand Total?

[DaveC49]

Hi George,

Gnucash implements double entry bookkeeping. For every transaction there are
at least two accounts which are affected. for example if you buy a toaster
at the appliance store, it will be recorded as a credit ( or decrease in the
balance) of the amount of the purchase in your Asset:Bank account. The
second half of the transaction will be a debit to an expense account (i.e an
increase in the balance) for the same amount, e.g. Expense:Household
Purchases.  

For more info see the Wikipedia entry on Double Entry Bookkeeping, the
Accounting Equation or an introductory text on Financial accounting  and see
the Gnucash documentation ( Tutorial and concepts Guide) on splits, which is
what the two (or more) parts of a transaction are referred to in Gnucash. 

You can normally access the components of a transaction by opening one of
the accounts affected then double clicking on an individual transaction to
open the split. Additional lines will open below the summary line and these
will display the accounts affected.

Splits can involve more than two accounts, for example when dealing with a
GST or VAT or sales  tax which you may collect on behalf of the government.


David




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