New User to GnuCash

[D]

Jack,

Welcome to Gnucash, and welcome to this list.

Before you tinker with the account structure in Gnucash, I strongly recommend that you read the Basics section in the Tutorial & Concepts Guide (available on the Gnucash website). The 4 chapters there will give you a better understanding of some of the fundamental ways that Gnucash differs from Quicken.


Specifically, you will want to look at how Gnucash's double entry aspects affect file structure. Gnucash doesn't have categories; rather, it uses accounts for this purpose. Many refugees from Quicken find this a difficult adjustment to make.

After you have read these chapters, you will understand that you probably will want to keep all those accounts--after all, you had the categories for a reason! You'll also understand how Gnucash reflects a more formal accounting system than Quicken.

A quick way to determine whether to keep all those accounts: open each of them up, and if there are transactions listed in the register, then you won't want to delete that account. 

Rest assured, however, that if you did try to delete one of these accounts, Gnucash would prompt you to designate where these transactions should be moved.

Hope this helps,
David


On December 14, 2017, at 10:07 PM, Jack Slater <theilliniguy at gmail.com> wrote:

I dropped Quicken finally and have been trying GC for a few days. So far it
seems like a great replacement but I'm a total noob.

My first question:
I did an import from Quicken and I guess I misunderstood the terminology
differences.  When I look at the GC Accounts window - it is a complete
listing of both (what were names in Quicken) Accounts and Categories, now
just all listed as Accounts.

I'd like to get rid of the Categories listings yet retain the "true"
Accounts but want to make sure that if I just delete them, I'm not harming
data "under the hood" so to speak.

I hope I'm approaching the mailing list help process correctly and also
hope to get good enough that I could eventually help others.

Thanks.

Jack in Illinois
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