[GNC] Equity Account "problem"

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> 1) Gnucash account ledgers should be thought of as primarily just a
> place to enter and edit actual transactions.
>
That's a SHORT CUT and available only when the transaction being entered 
has just a single debit and single credit. In a way a "special case" 
except probably true for 90+% of your transactions.

Originally (in bookkeeping) transactions were first entered into a book 
called the "journal". They were then posted into another book called the 
"ledger". This was an error prone process. Gnucash is "autoposting" and 
does not require you to first enter into the journal << the journal in 
gnucash is virtual, you can run a report to see it >>

BUT -- whenever the transaction has more than a single debit or single 
credit you enter hitting the "split" button and this will make the 
transaction appear in journal mode. In other words, you then finish 
entering the transaction as if you were making an entry in the journal. 
You can also ask gnucash to always have you entering in journal mode. 
Possibly this would be more familiar for new users coming to gnucash 
directly from old fashioned pen and ink on accounting paper bookkeeping. 
The computer will NOT make a "posting error" (copying a digit wrong, 
transposing digits, etc. )

Gnucash is letting you enter (most transactions) the way done in pen and 
paper days in what was called "cashbook accounting". With that, a small 
subset of all accounts in the "cashbook". Called that because one of 
these ultra popular always "cash". Like I said, 90+% transactions will 
only affect two accounts and one of those "cash".

Michael D Novack