[GNC] Tutorial and Concepts

[R Losey]

I changed the subject because I want to start a discussion regarding the
below comment, which regularly appears in this group (I am not throwing
rocks at Stan).

Sometimes, it is not a matter of understanding double-entry accounting or
bookkeeping, but much more "how is this commonly done?". This group, at
times, seems to throw out the "go learn double-entry bookkeeping" or "read
the manual" just a shade too often, when some people may just want to know
"How is -X- usually done?" (Look, I know it is tricky due to different tax
requirements, how detail-oriented the person wants to be, and the
flexibility of GnuCash to accomplish something in multiple ways, to name a
few).

As an example, consider Equity. From a brief look through the Tutorial and
Concepts Guide, it doesn't seem to be mentioned a lot (I didn't see a
search, but I looked at likely areas).

Perhaps it is a general accounting concept to close out the books by
zeroing income and expenses into equity, but I didn't know that until it
was mentioned here. I am very grateful to this list for learning about ways
to make this happen. I could have just been told to "go learn more about
accounting", but a few ideas about how to record such events was incredibly
helpful.


On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 2:40 PM Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <
stan+gc at fastmail.fm> wrote:

> What Flavio _does_ really really need, in my opinion, is to read Chapter
> 2 of the Tutorial and Concepts Guide, and read it again until he's
> mastered it. He would save himself a lot of confusion if he would get
> absolutely clear in his head about debits versus credits, and the effect
> of a debit or credit on each type of account. Instead, it seems
> to me that he's just throwing splits together and then asking on this
> list about one transaction after another. Asking about every tree is not
> an efficient way to learn about the forest.
>
> GnuCash isn't hard to use, as software goes, but it's not very forgiving
> to folks who just dive in without understanding double-entry bookkeeping.
>
-- 
_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com
Micah 6:8