[GNC] Split transaction

Stephen M. Butler Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com
Sat Jan 22 00:16:35 EST 2022


Heidi,

Also, this sounds like a credit card being used for several purchases 
throughout the month.  In which case it is better to record the 
individual purchases as they occur.  Or, download the individual lines 
to import.

In that case, you will have a Liability:Credit Card:nameofcc account 
against which all the transactions will post with the other side of the 
post (the other split) being the relevant expense account.

When you pay the credit card off, you record the payment against the 
checking account on the one side and the Liability account on the other.

Otherwise, if you have a lot of purchases throughout the month there 
would be one humongous transaction with gobs of splits and you would 
lose the date for each purchase.



On 1/21/22 20:59, davidcousens49 at gmail.com wrote:
> heidi,
>
> It would appear you don't understand the basis of double entry accounting which
> is what is used in accounting practice generally and by GnuCash.
>
> The Tutorial and Concepts Guide for GnuCash,
> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/index.html, has a brief outline
> of the basis of this in Part I Chapter 2 as well as specific exaamples of
> typical transactions for checkbooks and credit cards in Part II. Wikipeiad also
> has entries for double entry accounting. There is also a detailed help manual
> which explains the interface operations
> https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-help/help.html.
>
> If you could read through the first part of the Tutorial and concepts guide, how
> to use GnuCash may be a little clearer and make more sense.
>
> Just a little bit on nomenclature. A single transaction always affects at least
> two accounts (sometimes more) and the sum of the debits and the sum of the
> credits for a single transaction must always be equal.
>
> When you buy something using a debit card, to record the purchase you generally
> reduce ( Withdraw or Credit) the balance of your bank account (an asset account)
> and increase the balance of an expense account (Deposit or Debit) associated
> with the type of item you are  buying. ( the above heading names are appliacble
> for an account of type Asset but may be different for Liability,Income Equity
> and Expense accounts) The names in brackets are the headings of the last two
> columns in an account register display, the first in each  being the informal
> headings many people use  and the second the formal accounting headings used  in
> accounting practice. Which labels you use is a used preference set in the
> dialogue opened with Edit->Preferences from the menu.
>
> You would generally enter such a transaction from the register for your bank
> account and it will have at least two lines. You can see the two lines for a
> transaction (normally only a summary line is displayed) by selecting the View-
>> Autosplit Ledger option from the menu while you have the tab for the relvant
> account register open. Clicking on a transaction to select it will open it as a
> summary line folowed by each split line. You will see that each line of a simple
> transaction has an entry in either the or DepositDebit or Credit Column (it is
> possible for more complex transactions e.g. where tax is involved to have more
> than two lines) and that the amount in one column equals the amount in the
> other.
>
> Hope this helps make things a little clearer. Come back if you have further
> questions after reading the tutorial and Concepts introductory material.
>
> David Cousens
>
>
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-- 
Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com
kg7je at arrl.net
253-350-0166
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