[GNC] How to record payments for several items paid with a single transaction?
Michael or Penny Novack
stepbystepfarm at comcast.net
Fri Jul 21 12:00:43 EDT 2023
I'm just going to speak to this part of the matter.
a) The way you enter a transaction via "split" is the original way all
transactions were entered. First into the "journal" and then posted to
the "ledger". When you are entering a "split" you are in journal mode
though with gnucash the journal is virtual and completing the
transaction posts it to the ledger. The "ledger" is your gnucash
accounts, the CoA. You did this way (in the "old" days even when the
transaction involved just two accounts.
b) The way we normally enter transactions in gnucash when only two
accounts involved is a shortcut. Since in practice, the vast majority of
transactions involve just two accounts, that means most of the time.
Since most of you never did bookkeeping pen and ink on paper, I won't
bother explaining how "cashbook accounting" worked, which was a pen and
ink on paper shortcut for the situation of only two accounts and both
in a very popular subset of accounts. But essentially THAT is what
gnucash is modeling when we use the (normal) shortcut for just two accounts.
In other words, how we enter split transactions in gnucash is the
GENERAL CASE (how we can enter ANY transaction). How we normally enter
transactions in gnucash is using a SPECIAL CASE shortcut for just two
accounts. But the percentage of transactions that meet the special case
criteria is >90% so in our minds what is special and what is general
gets switched.
Michael D Novack
> Would a split transaction work for this? However I thought split
> transactions are for joining together payments to 'different' places
> rather than joining together several payments to and from the same
> places.
>
>
> Any/all help would be very welcome.
>
--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.
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