Newbie Question

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/6/2017 6:00 AM, Nigel Snow wrote:
> Hi,
> I am new to GnuCash.
> I have finished setting up my chart of accounts manually, but now I need to populate Opening Balances.
> I understand that option was only available in the wizard.....
> The question is how to set up Opening Balances Manually?
>
Exactly, you enter the transaction manually (just like you will be 
entering other transactions). In other words, this is simply the first 
transaction of the accounting period.

BUT -- because doing a two way split transaction is tricky, I suggest 
you use TWO transactions, one for the credit side of equity and one for 
the debit side.

You want a BALANCE SHEET from your old method of accounting that would 
be valid for the first day of your new set of books under gnucash. Look 
at the total assets amount. Create a transaction to credit equity for 
that amount and hit split. Change the split amount to the first asset 
account amount and specify the account. Repeat till there is nothing 
left in Imbalance. Then that side of the split is done. OK, now do the 
same for the total amount of liabilities except this time you are doing 
a debit to equity.

Michael D Novack