Gnucash usage for small banks and GL derivation rules

[Adrien Monteleone]

First, I don’t think GnuCash is recommended for any case but personal finances, clubs, and small businesses. A financial institution is on an entirely different level. As David noted, I certainly wouldn’t want to be a customer of such a bank. (now, if they liked GC so much they decided to fully fund its development to get it to an acceptable state for that case, I might change my mind)


> On Jun 20, 2017, at 8:09 AM, Andrey Shalaurov <shalaurov at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have two questions:
> 1. Can this software be used for a small business that is a bank /
> financial institution - all accounts have to be flipped from bank's point
> of view e.g. Loans are Assets, Deposits are Liabilities (can the software
> be re-configured as such)?

The software doesn’t need to be “re-configured” you just enter everything where it belongs based on the perspective of the entity (business/personal) you are keeping books for.

Money loaned out would be under short/long term assets. (as appropriate)

Deposits could be under Liabilities:Customer Deposits.

> 
> 2. It looks like each transaction can be assigned to an 'account' (assuming
> General Ledger/GL Account), are there any other GL derivation rules
> possible e.g. transaction is assigned to a GL account only if a rule set is
> met?

I’ll leave this one for someone more familiar with the importer.

> Also, can you please clarify within transaction import whether:
> -deposits/withdrawals translates to "debit / credit" (I expected to see the
> D/C indicator for each transaction) and

Go to Preferences > Accounts and check the box next to “Use Formal Accounting Labels.”


> -balance translates to each transaction “amount"

Balance is a running balance. The balance of each transaction should always be “zero” because debits should equal credits. (you can see this “zero” balance if you view the General Ledger under the Tools menu.)

However, the main line of any transaction will show the net debit/credit applied for that transaction for that account. (go to View > Transaction Journal mode to see all split lines at all times to see this more clearly)


> -how do you assign an GL Account "pair" to each transaction (2 accounts),
> seems like in import interface only 1 assignment is possible

I don’t think this is currently possible, but I know work is being done to improve the CSV importer.

Regards,
Adrien

> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrey
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.