[GNC] Confused Entering A Refund To Credit Card Account

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 3/30/2021 4:06 PM, Jack Frillman via gnucash-user wrote:
> I tried adding the minus sign and I still got the Unbalanced-USD thing 
> but that doesn't I was doing it correctly.
> Entering these split transactions had been the biggest issue I have 
> encountered switching to GNUCash. 


Amounts ending up in the (special) Imbalance account mean you 
accidentally forgot to specify an account. Gnucash let you enter the 
transaction (instead of stopping you because not in balance). There are 
pros and cons about that. While gnucash will allow you to create an 
account on the fly (the reason you didn't specify an account might be 
that the proper account for this does not yet exist) I kind of like what 
gnucash does here. Often when I see the need fore that new account I 
realize that it's not going to be simply adding a new account but now 
dividing an existing one or something similar, a lot more work that I 
don;t want to do in the middle of dealing with a stack of transactions.

Splits --- this isn't a gnucash thing per se. In standard double entry 
bookkeeping there will always be at least two accounts involved with a 
transaction but there could be a lot more. This is one case where what 
gnucash does in having you enter transactions directly into one of the 
affected accounts (virtual journal) can get trickier than the other way 
around, enter into the journal and automatic post. But again, since MOST 
transactions are not splits (most affect only two accounts), this was a 
sensible choice the developers made. What you do most of the time should 
be quick/easy.

Which means you will need to learn how to do splits. I suggest you begin 
JUST with one sided splits (there is one debit, the credit side is split 
or one credit, the debit side is split. For these you begin entering the 
transaction in the account on the side that is not split. Only when you 
have gotten good at this attempt a two sided split.

PRACTICE -- remember that gnucash can maintain several sets of books for 
you. While a beginner with gnucash, or later when learning a new feature 
(when you are a beginner, it's all new) you can have a set of books 
named "test". This should be a fairly simple set of books, not a great 
many accounts or transactions in each account. Just enough for you to 
try things out. Like practicing entering split transactions. I will give 
you one hint for two way splits. LIE! It is a useful trick by entering a 
WRONG AMOUNT when starting the transaction. If you enter an amount a 
little too large, when you enter split mode, you can change that to the 
correct value and it will still leave you with an amount on that side of 
the transaction. For example, you can now change that amount to what 
will be correct for the other account on that side. I'll stop there, 
since if you have gotten this far you'll be able to figure out for 
yourself what to do if more accounts on that side.


Michael D Novack