[GNC] questions from a new user

[David T.]

Michael,

I took Neil's comment to mean that he didn't want to connect to his bank account online. 

Neil,

I'd like to point out that, despite the scope of your endeavor, you're in business, which will entail a certain amount of record keeping. Gnucash is directly designed for this sort of business, and will allow you to manage those finances in the ways you've described, but it *does* have a stiff learning curve, and you do have to learn a bit about accounting to use it. That being said, many non-accountants (myself among them) have been able to use GnuCash successfully to meet their needs. 

⁣David T. ​

On Jan 9, 2023, 4:42 AM, at 4:42 AM, Michael or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at comcast.net> wrote:
>On 1/8/2023 7:14 PM, Neil Morrish wrote:
>> Hi
>> I am not sure if gnucash is right for me, as it seems quite hard to
>get
>> started. Can you advise me what steps to learn about for my simple
>> requirement please?
>> I want to keep a record of business transactions so I can send
>invoices and
>> make an annual report for my tax calculation.
>> I do work for 4 or 5 customers and like to give an invoice that shows
>the
>> things I've done , the cost of the work, and the expenses I incur.
>> I dont want to link this to my bank account.
>> When it is set up, is it easy to input the entries quickly?
>
>By "I don't want to "link" to my bank account do you perhaps mean that 
>you are NOT wanting this to be a full personal set of books? You want 
>this JUST for your small number of customers business.
>
>Yes, you CAN use gnucash for this purpose. In effect, you are setting
>up 
>a subset of what would be full books. It WOULD have a "bank account"
>for 
>when the invoices you sent customers are paid. But this "bank account" 
>would be a (virtual) subset of your actual bank account. So don;t 
>(later) ask us how you can use gnucash's reconciliation << will be 
>manual for you >>
>
>So you would set up using the business features option and just the 
>income and expense accounts associated with your business plus that 
>asset account "bank". You will be able to run a report for the year 
>showing profit (or loss) for tax purposes. The only complication I can 
>see is if you file your taxes "cash basis" because using the business 
>features requires accrual basis, but it IS possible to adjust for that 
>at year end << for tax filing, subtract what's still in "receivables" 
>form income and what's still in "payables" from expenses >>
>
>BUT -- if new to double entry bookkeeping do carefully read the
>tutorial 
>and if that's not enough to give you understanding, some standard 
>"Bookkeeping 101" text or on-line. Software like gnucash is partially 
>automating the process of keeping double entry books but you still have
>
>to understand what you are doing.
>
>Michael D Novack
>
>
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