[GNC] How To Put Opening Balance in Acc Rev Account?5

[Adrien Monteleone]

Arthur,

If you enter a negative amount into a register it will swap it to the 
other column. (debit/credit if using formal labels, left/right 
respectively otherwise - the labels change based on the account type.)

The opening balance transaction should have been a credit (right column) 
to your AR-Other account (or whatever you named it, it isn't of type 
'A/Receivable' is it?) and if you view splits, an equal debit (left 
column) should be in the split for the Equity:Opening Balances account.

The 220 payment should have been another credit (right column) to his 
custom AR account and the other split a debit (left column) to your 
"cash/checking/undeposited funds" account depending on the method of 
payment received.

The current balance of the account should be a credit of 404. (shown as 
negative if that preference is set accordingly)

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Note that doing manual AR transactions you will *not* have a Statement 
of Account out of the box. You only get that included if you use the 
Business Features and set your tenant up as a 'customer' and post 
'invoices' for rent. (Reports > Business > Customer Report)

You can use the Account Report as a substitute depending on how you 
handle your manual transactions. (*not* the 'Account Report - Single 
Transaction', just regular 'Account Report')

Be sure to run that report while viewing the custom AR register. (as 
that is the account you want a report on, not on your Opening Balances 
account which is the other side of this transaction.)

If the resulting report is blank or is telling you there is not 
sufficient info, click the Options button and start investigating 
various report options till you get what you are looking for. (or close 
to it) You can keep the Options window open and simply 'Apply' to see 
the changes as you go. Once you have them set to your liking, use the 
Save Config As... button. Note that from this point on, you'll need to 
load the report from the Reports > Saved Report Configurations window, 
and *not* using the Reports > Account Report menu item. (otherwise, 
you'll get the default options and you need to set them all over again 
each time)

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While you are learning GnuCash, I highly recommend you turn on View > 
Transaction Journal mode and Double Line mode. This will show you all 
splits at all times, as well as the extra 'Notes' field. (which you may 
find to be very useful) This way, you'll see what GnuCash is doing in 
every transaction and it will help you learn double-entry. Feel free to 
turn it back to Basic or Auto-Split mode at any time, but I switched and 
never went back.

I also personally turned on "Preferences > Accounts > Labels > Use 
formal accounting labels" because Debit/Credit was easier for me to 
learn than the sometimes confusing and ever changing common terms for 
each account type. This makes it easier to follow accounting 
texts/websites as they use the debit/credit labels, not the GnuCash 
'common' labels.

Another good idea is to set "Preferences > Accounts > Reverse Balanced 
Accounts > Credit accounts" as that way, you'll see all 'normal' 
balances as positive. If you ever see a negative balance, that might 
indicate something is entered incorrectly (as a debit instead of a 
credit, or the reverse) or you'll at least know you are in the 
'opposite' normal balance for that type of account. (you can't have a 
negative cash account, but you can be overdrawn in checking, and you can 
have overpaid on a credit card/liability account)


Regards,
Adrien

On 3/14/22 11:18 PM, arthur brogard via gnucash-user wrote:
> I couldn't find a register to enter anything into.And I don't know what 'splits' are.
> So I entered in the acc. rec. account I made for him.  I took a punt and entered -184 and it accepted it. Then I put in a 'payment' of 220 and it showed me a balance in red of  -34 which is fine.
> that original 182 is not in red though.  not that I give a damn.
> I see no way to get a statement of account from it though.  I tried 'report account' and it said there was nothing it could do.