[GNC] Split Transaction in One Account results in Multiple Transactions in the Other Account

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 8/24/2025 10:46 AM, Ed Greenberg wrote:
> Everybody has been posting that GC is not built to handle multiple splits
> into the same account. This makes sense and is true.
>
There is serious confusion for some new people.

The GENERAL transaction has more than just two accounts associated with 
it. We enter these as if entering into the journal (like in the old 
days) and when we hit enter, gets posted to the ledger (the journal is 
virtual in gnucash)

But there is a very special case of only two accounts (MOST transactions 
just two accounts). Gnucash allows us to enter these directly into the 
ledger, start in one and then specify the other. In the old days, called 
"cashbook accounting". Because accounting paper only so wide, just 
allowed for a subset of the ledger, with "cash always being in that 
subset (hence the name).

Here we have a user wanting to have CATEGORIES within an account (in 
this case groceries) presumably so could ask for report "how much on 
dairy products?". No can do in standard bookkeeping. IF you want to 
separate, then sub accounts as children of groceries << and then you 
WOULD expect separate lines in the transaction.

This has come up before when people come to gnucash from Quicken.

Michael D Novack