[GNC] few questions on gnucash

[David Cousens]

Julie

How far you want to go back really depends on how much of your previous data
you will want to go back to in Gnucash. I guess that may depend upon how
long you will be able and need to be able to access the Quicken data. If
that is indefinitely by keeping a copy of the last Quicken version you used
then there is no great need. 

If you open the Equity:Opening Balances account register you will find the
transactions recording the opening balances for any accounts which had
existing balances. These will be usually only asset (bank accounts) and
liability accounts(credit cards loans etc). 

If you select the transaction and then click on the Split button in the
toolbar, it will open the transaction to display the two components (or
splits) of the transaction. Assuming your check book balance was in the
black when you opened the books the two splits should appear something like
this:
 Account                                             Debit         Credit
Equity:Opening Balances                         xxxxx
Asset:..: ChequeAccount      xxxxx 

You may have other similar transaction records for other bank accounts and
or liabilities like a credit card. For a credit card the debit and credit
will be reversed from what is shown above. 

 If there are no transactions there, then it is likely you did not assign an
opening balance or possibly assigned it to the wrong account. These should
have been created either when you created the original chart of accounts or
when you created an individual new account in the chart of accounts. 

In GnuCash you can look at a transaction from any of the account registers
for which the transaction has a split. 

So If you then open the Checking account register and go to the first
transaction, it should be the Opening Balance transaction and is usually
marked as such in the Description. Again click on it and then click on the
split button in the toolbar to open the splits.  It should be similar to the
above but the order of the rows will be reversed as the first row of the
splits in a register is usually to the account the register is for. Check
the account the second split goes to is the Equity :Opening Balances and the
amount matches. If it is going to the wrong account click on the Account
field for the second split and select the Equity:Opening Balances from the
drop down list. 

If you do have transactions in the Equity: Opening balances account then
check the amounts match and that the second split is assigned to the correct
account. If it is not click on the account column in the row of the second
split. You will get a down arrow at the right of the field and if you click
on that a drop down menu which will list accounts in the Chart of accounts.
Scroll through it to find the checking account in the list and then click on
it. 

 If there is no transaction at all in both the Asset:Checking account or the
Equity:Opening Balances then you can create one manually, Enter the date (
possibly the day before you commenced entering transactions in your GnuCash
books)  and a descrition opening balance. If you do this in the Checking
Account register the first split should open with the account filed set to
the Checking account. Enter the account balance in the debit column if the
account was in the black on that day (or the credit column if the account
had a negative balance - note the reversal of debit and credit from your
statement. For a bank your account is a liability and when you have funds in
it it will have a credit balance in their record).

Use the tab key to open the next row for the second split and tab to the
Account column. click and select the equity:Opening Balances from the drop
down list. Gnucash should automatically palce the amount you placed in the
debit column in the first split into the credit column of the second split.
If not, correct the amount. If the transaction were unbalanced i.e. the
debit and credit amounts were not the same, GnuCash will automatically
calculate the difference and apply it to the Imbalance account. 
Transactions generally have two splits, one debit and one credit but may
have any number of splits as long as the sum of the debits should equal the
sum of the credit associated with the transaction. 

The balance of the Imbalance account should always be 0. Any non zero amount
usually indicates a transaction has been entered without an account being
assigned to the second split and it needs to be corrected.

Hope that gets your accounts to display the expected balance.

David Cousens.



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David Cousens
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