[GNC] How to find the transaction entered one minute ago

[Geoff Jankowski]

A History Lesson 

The (General) Journal is the page into which transactions were entered in real time. It comes from the French “jour” or day.

The (General and other) Ledger(s) is(are) based on the transfer of entries from the Journal but structured into the main business headings of assets, liabilities, capital, revenue and expenses.

Entering transactions to Gnucash is the equivalent of the journal entry. The reports generated are the equivalent of transferring the journal entries to the ledger(s).  It all used to be done by hand and is why double entry accounting was developed to ensure errors were avoided as both sides needed to balance and if they did not, a gruelling trawl through the journal entries and their transfers was required to find the error. No one could leave until end of day balance was achieved. 

It was why accountants always got home late for dinner!


Geoff
+33 6 22 93 00 53
+44 7770 58 48 38

> On 3 Jun 2025, at 04:18, NoobAlice via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> On 2025-06-02 07:32 PM, Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash-user wrote:
>> On 6/2/2025 2:06 PM, sunfish62 at yahoo.com wrote:
> 
> *snip*
> 
>> Gnucash calls many of its reports by odd names. Thus the report called "Income Statement" is not a report just for accounts of type income. It includes accounts of type expense and usually called "Profit and Loss" (if the entity is a for profit business) or "Statement of Revenues and Expenses" (if the entity is not for profit). SAME REPORT. To confuse further, just as gnucash calls the report "Income Statement" (even though includes expenses) that not for profit might title the report "Statement of Revenues" (even though includes expenses).
> 
> *snip*
> 
> "Income Statement" is the (usual) proper title of the profit and loss report for companies that follow United States GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principals - the rules of accounting).
> 
> So not an odd name, but a proper one! :)
> 
> It makes sense to me that the devs included the same report under both names.  It gives people two chances to find it, even if there are issues with the users' knowledge or the title translation.  I would guess this is one of the most used reports for people starting out tracking their finances.
> 
> 
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