[GNC] Cash Account

[Patrick James]

> On 10/01/2024 9:44 AM PDT Chris Miller via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
>  
> Hi Folks, 
> 
> These are GnuCash questions; not accounting questions: 
> 
> 
>     * How do "Cash", "Bank" and "Asset" accounts different from each other? They are all assets ... 
>     * How do "Liability" and "Credit Card" accounts different from each other? They are all liabilities ... 
> 
> 
> Are these distinctions without a difference? 
> Are they here because most users might not know that a "Bank" account is an asset and a "Credit Card" is a liability? 
> Does GnuCash treat them differently? 
> 
> Thanks for the help, 
> -- 
> Chris. 
> 

The page below suggests there is some good reason, but it's a bit ambiguous.

My overall interpretation from the entire page is that it helps with the balance sheet, or something similar to that.

"A GnuCash account must have a unique name (that you assign) and one of the predefined GnuCash “account types”. There are a total of 12 account types in GnuCash. These 12 account types are based on the 5 basic accounting types; the reason there are more GnuCash account types than basic accounting types is that this allows GnuCash to perform specialized tracking and handling of certain accounts. There are 6 asset accounts (Cash, Bank, Stock, Mutual Fund, Accounts Receivable, and Other Assets), 3 liability accounts (Credit Card, Accounts Payable, and Liability), 1 equity account (Equity), 1 income account (Income), and 1 expense account (Expenses)."

Again, I'm not exactly sure about the way that GnuCash was programmed with respect to these various different accounts, as I just use the basic accounts and organize things myself.

SOURCE: https://lists.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-guide/accts-types1.html