New user transitioning from Quicken

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 5/1/2016 1:53 AM, Leo Simon wrote:
> Hi everybody.
>
> Like many users of gnucash, I've been using Linux for years and the only
> reason I keep a windows virtualbox is to have access to quicken.     I have
> very much hoped that gnucash would allow me to jettison Windows forever, but
> so far it appears that's sadly not to be an attainable goal.
>
> I've read the section of the manual for transitioning-from-Quicken users
> like me, but amazingly it doesn't address the most basic questions that all
> quicken users must surely want an answer to.
Stop for just a moment. I think that at least SOME of your problems are 
related to your trying to see this in "Quicken" terms and so not having 
an idea of what reports to run to see what you want to see. For example:

"In other words, I've been unable to get "outside" of gnucash's account structure, and see a date-sorted list
of *all* my transactions, rather than see, individually, all of by
transactions that belong to a particular Account.      To say it in yet a
different way, I simply want to see a replica of my bank statement within
gnucash."

Let's take those two questions. In the old days of double entry bookkeeping you first entered transactions (both sides of them) into a book called a "journal" where they WERE in chronological order and then these transactions were posted into the ledger accounts (an error prone process; easy to miscopy an number)

So ----- I want to see all transactions in chronological order means "I want to run a report that in effect shows me the journal (virtual in gnucash, but you CAN run a report that will do that).

But the second question bothers me a bit. "I want to see all the transactions of the ledger account which is my bank account". Can you yet see "all the transactions" of ANY account? << why should the ledger account for your bank account be different >> Also bothering me "replica of my bank statement". I would NOT expect that to initially BE a "replica", and that doesn't depend on whether I am using gnucash or old fashioned paper. I would expect that MY records show checks written that have not yet gotten back to the bank and so are missing from the bank statement. I expect the bank statement to possibly have fees or interest that aren't in my records (yet). I expect to have to RECONCILE a bank statement to my own records.

Maybe your best approach is just for a moment forget about "how Quicken does it" and read the "fundamentals of double entry bookkeeping" instead of skipping directly to the "coming from Quicken" help.

Then, when asking questions about "how do I get to see X" as that in general terms and NOT "like what Quicken shows me" because people like me who have used double entry since we were young haven't a clue what Quicken does << if you asked "like Quickbooks does" we could understand >>

Michael D Novack








>    The first of these is:  how
> to/if it's indeed possible to  reproduce the analog of Quicken's check
> registers.       The manual has an entire chapter devoted to the transition
> process, but amazingly---and this seems to be a pattern---it doesn't appear
> to anywhere address the simplest of simple questions:   can I get the same
> functionality out of gnucash that I get out of Quicken?
>
> The manual seems to suggest that working with Accounts rather than
> Categories will make your life easier, whereas it's abundantly clear that,
> at least for long-time quicken-users,  it makes your life *much* harder.
> Specifically, the first thing that I want to be able to do is abstract from
> gnucash's account structure and look at all my transactions in a ledger that
> matches my online ledger with my bank.    In other words, I've been unable
> to get "outside" of gnucash's account structure, and see a date-sorted list
> of *all* my transactions, rather than see, individually, all of by
> transactions that belong to a particular Account.      To say it in yet a
> different way, I simply want to see a replica of my bank statement within
> gnucash.     Presumably, *everybody* who has ever used Quicken must
> desparately want to see the same thing, so it *presumably* must be possible.
>
> If anybody could help with this, or point me to the right website for a
> question like this, I'd be very grateful.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Leo
>
>
>
>
>
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There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.