[GNC] new user woes

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 3/11/2023 4:58 PM, Jamie Tolbert via gnucash-user wrote:
> Its been a number of years, but I did take a few accounting classes in 
> college......so I have an idea of WHAT I want to do, but unclear on 
> HOW to do it in gnucash.....I will continue to fumble my way thru it, 
> the tutorial is rather cumbersome to read thru, for example, a search 
> for opening balances turn up several pages with OPEN and several with 
> a variation of BALANCEs, but not the account thats labeled OPENING 
> BALANCES.......if that is read only, how do I edit it to put my 
> opening balance in ?!?!?! 

You do not NEED to use the opening balance wizard.

If you remember opening books from those accounting classes you will 
know that "in the old days" this was done with a transaction (or 
transactions). In other words, you can create your CoA with all accounts 
starting with a zero balance and then:

Using the balance sheet from your old system, enter your first 
transaction(s).

If a SINGLE transaction, going to be split on both sides, debit and 
credit. It is not easy for a beginner to enter a two way split 
transaction, so you could instead use two, one for the debit side and 
one for the credit side so split only on one side.

If doing it that way, you won't likely know the amount for the equity 
side of the transaction. You could start with that amount as zero, 
split, and then begin entering all the debit (or credit) accounts, and 
when you have those entered, the IMBALANCE amount will be what you want 
to change that zero to. When you have done both sides, equity should 
match what was in the Balance Statement you were working from.

You could also enter the amounts one at a time. In all the above methods 
you would use something like "opening the books" to describe the 
transaction(s)

The wizard is just a tool to allow you to populate your initial CoA with 
starting amounts and that will use a special account under equity called 
something like starting equity. It is just like doing it one at a time 
EXCEPT you don't see those transactions.


Michael D Novack