[GNC] help to set up equity sub-accounts opening balances [problem solved]

[Marilyn Graves Kimple]

Friends: I first posted to this list back on August 4 and I thank you all for your help. I believe I have my solution; it is working and is just what I want. Warning: those of you who are real accountants will probably be appalled and the rest of you should probably not try this at home. 

Here is a summary:   
   - I wanted to be able to set up what I call “Fund” accounts for designated purposes, which I had previously made Equity accounts [because  in my old program I could enter an opening balance and deposit/withdraw funds directly to those accounts. Can’t do that in GnuCash, or regular accounting.]
   - There was some confusion about this, but in my system the “Funds” actually include all of my assets (less liabilities). No “envelopes” or anything like that. I post (actually transfer) budgeted amounts to my “Fund” accounts, and at the end of the month I post the balance of “net assets” to the Emergency/Savings fund, bringing the net assets to zero and closing the month (the old-fashioned way, I guess).
   - One suggestion (before we got off on envelopes and non-profit accounting) was that my “Funds” were not actually Equity accounts; they should be Liability accounts. That made some sense, so I set them up as liability accounts so they work pretty much like a credit card. You can write a check or make a credit card purchase and take the funds directly from the appropriate fund account. Different: to deposit (transfer, actually) funds into a fund account you need to use an expense account (“Accruals” in my case; I may not be using the term correctly).
   - At this point, your equity account shows a balance of zero, which is correct. But if you take the total of the Fund liability accounts, change the sign and add them to both sides of the accounting equation you can see that they are equal to your total equity.
This is certainly not for everyone, but it works for me. (Hope it does not come back to bite me, but I have tested it out.) I am very pleased with GnuCash.
Best regards,mgk