[GNC] new user, new file

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 1/3/2023 4:15 PM, Jamie Tolbert wrote:
> Starting a new business. For the next month or so, what few bills I 
> have will be paid by me, until I get my business checking set up. Its 
> been years since I studied double entry accounting, but I thought if I 
> paid a bill for lets say 100.00, I would credit my owner account for 
> 100.00 and debit whatever expense account it is. I cant find how to 
> credit my owner account, or opening balance. 


You are perhaps confused by "opening balance". This is just a special 
equity account used by the wizard and only applies if you are creating 
your new set of books WITH opening balances. Instead of creating your 
new set of books with all accounts zero and then filling in the correct 
starting amounts (from your old balance sheet) with opening transactions.

So just imagine that is what you were doing (even if you DID use the 
wizard.

The point here is that the amount in "starting equity" really should 
have been in an account (under equity) with a name like "owner's 
equity", right? So create such an account and then you have an account 
to credit for these interim additional investments (you are investing 
more in your business by personally paying some business bills).

NOW your only problem is this extraneous "starting equity" amount which 
you really should want in "owner's equity". Take a look at that account 
"starting equity". What is its parent account? (the top level account 
equity, right?) Will gnucash allow you to change that parent to make 
starting equity a child of owner's equity instead?

Michael D Novack