Any suggestions for UK businesses - program seems quite American

Buddha Buck blaisepascal at gmail.com
Fri Nov 25 16:56:40 EST 2016


Hi,

On Fri, Nov 25, 2016 at 9:14 AM Dr. David Kirkby - Kirkby Microwave Ltd <
drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:

> However, it seems very American based, and some of the terms, like a
> "Checking
> account" mean nothing to me. A Google suggests its not the same as a
> current
> account, as we known it here.
>

Don't worry about it. As far as GnuCash is concerned, "Checking account" is
mainly just a name and perhaps a set of default text or descriptions. In
the underlying workings, a "Checking account" is treated as an "asset
account", and the main feature about it is that debit balances are
considered positive and credit balances are considered negative.


>
> The business account for my company
>
> * Pays no interest - some business accounts might, but mine does not.
> * Does have a cheque book, although I have never used it.
> * Has a debit card, in which one can make transactions just as any normal
> debit
> card
> * No overdraft facility - easy to get if I wanted one, but I don't have
> the need.
> * Can transfer money from the current account, to other customers accounts,
> given their account number etc.
> * Does allow transfers to be made in other currencies, although the
> currency of
> the bank account is GBP.
>

For the most part, these features (or lack thereof) are immaterial to
GnuCash. GnuCash does not automatically track interest, but if you have an
interest-bearing account you can manually enter interest payments (or
schedule automatic transactions in GnuCash to record known interest
payments). GnuCash allows you to track payments by cheque, but if you have
none, you don't have to enter any. The same goes for payments by debit
card. Money transfers into and out of GnuCash are handled like any other
transfer.


> IMHO it would be good if some non-American terms could be added to
> GnuCash, so
> it has things like a "current account", which everyone is familiar with in
> the
> UK. It is the first bank account someone will get for personal use. Here
> in the
> UK at least, I strongly suspect a "current account" is by far the most
> common
> account in use.
>

A lot of the default accounts that GnuCash come with are not perfect
matches with what people's actual needs are, and should be regarded as a
starting point.

For instance, in US terminology I have five bank accounts with two banks:
one bank I have a savings account and two checking accounts, and the other
bank I have a savings account and a checking account. I debit cards for two
of the checking accounts, and (somewhere) cheques for the third checking
account. GnuCash defaults to two accounts, a "Checking Account" and a
"Savings Account". Obviously, that is insufficient for my needs.

GnuCash allows me to create and rename accounts in a hierarchy to meet my
needs. As such, I can create accounts with names like "AFCU Savings", "AFCU
Checking X", "AFCU Checking 2" to represent my accounts at one of the
banks. As far as GnuCash is concerned, they are separate accounts in the
account hierarchy, with a lot of the same properties (currency, account
type ("Asset"), etc).




>
> --
> Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
> Kirkby Microwave Ltd
> Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3
> 6DT, UK.
> Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
> http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
> Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 <+44%207910%20441670> (0900 to 2100
> GMT only please)
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