[GNC] I need basic help

[Adrien Monteleone]

I am also of the opinion that hiding or obfuscating terms and concepts 
is not the solution.

Education is.

Yeah, I got an A in Accounting 101, big whoop, but I've understood it by 
leaps and bounds decades later by using GnuCash with formal labels 
turned on. (and using the Transaction Journal View) And I've learned 
even more trying to explain it to others. (one learns a subject most by 
trying to teach it)

Regards,
Adrien

On 10/20/23 8:35 PM, David Cousens wrote:
> 
> I do agree with the comments in your previous post that the concept of
> transactions needs to be explained before or at least in parallel to  concept of
> accounts. I rewrote a fair bit of the basics section of the guide when I was
> fresh out of an accounting master's which might account for its more technical
> bias.  I haven't revisited the guide much since then but I will take another
> look at it. It is always a compromise between producing a full scale textbook
> and brevity that someone will actually read.
> 
> Some other accounting software does indeed hide the details of the debit/credit
> and the accounting equation and double entry from users. I am a convert from
> software that did that and because that basis was hidden it made understanding
> the accounts more difficult than it should, particularly during the setup phase
> of a business. Add to that my highly paid accountant (one of big 4) was not
> particularly useful. That can be useful for a lot of routine data entry, however
> it is the edge cases that often require a deeper understanding of the basis of
> double entry accounting.
> 
> I disagree however that the non-accounting terminology should be the default.
> The non-accounting terminology is often not precise in its meaning whereas once
> you have understood the definitions, the meaning of the accounting terminology
> and its use is well defined.  Accounting is a well documented commercial
> practice and the double entry system is core to its operation and GnuCash is
> primarily accounting software, not general financial software although it does a
> very good job for small operations and can be adapted to that use.
> 
> It is also an excellent educational tool for formal accounting. I used it as
> such while doing amaster's and it produced basic reports which conformed well
> with what was expected for formal accounting reports.