Farmer Question

[James Meade]

I've used Quicken for years and am considering switching to gnucash mainly  
because Quicken is going to a subscription pay model and I don't want to  
be held hostage by it or by an operating system (I always have in the back  
of my mind to swithc from Windows to Linux).  I know little of  
accounting.  In reading the manuals, I have a number of questions about  
setting up the gnucash system.

1.  I have several checking accounts and use them all for both personal  
and business use.  It seems unfeasible to set up two sets of books.   
Can/how do I separate personal from business in one set of books?

2.  I have several credit cards, use them the same way as checking.  How  
do I set up several credit card sub accounts, e.g., notional names AB  
Visa, CD Mastercard, EF Visa, etc., and separate purchases for business  
and personal?

3.  I do all my data entry manually and am not going to change.

4.  I have several income streams, including farming, flight instruction,  
writing, custom farming (e.g., mowing or plowing for someone else),  
military retirement, social security benefits.  Some are business and some  
are personal.  Any thing to consider when I set them up?

As I see it, my main uncertainties are about mixing personal and business  
and about having a number of different accounts of the same type that are  
used for both personal and business (i.e., checking and credit cards).

It occurs to me that if  I have to ask these questions the prospect of  
using double-entry bookkeeping may be more than I should attempt.  If you  
think that is the case feel free to say so.  I'm trying to figure out if I  
want to go this way.  I tried QuickBooks about 8-10 years ago and gave it  
up after a couple of months.  I have the time and energy to put in, just  
not sure if I'm smart enough.

Thanks,

Jim