Once you start entering transactions into GnuCash on the day or the week you incur the expense, you are getting more control and it is perhaps then you would need the balance to match the bank's balance. Hence it makes sense to use gnucash on your laptop as that you probably will have around most often. You can transfer them, but it is a bit fiddly. So if you open the file (or mysql database) on another computer you will miss your custom reports. They are saved on the machine you do the accounting - not within the gnucash file. Note that reports are easy to modify and you can save the report configurations with names you can remember. But to spot things like that you use reports and if one month is abnormal you can drill down to transactions and learn/correct things. No matter what - I still glance at every transaction on import and still sometimes petrol expense lands in grocery (because of the same seller). Gnucash wil learn from import to import what transactions go where - so you could import say 1 or 3 month intervals to start with instead of a while year. Reflecting that personal finance is more about behaviour than maths and that it is more for the future where your overview of money is useful. How many transactions to import at first - for me half a year or a year is quite enough once you start tracking regularly you accumulate more date and this becomes a non-issue. If later you learn what those transactions were - you still can move them to the right account and you will be pleased that your reports show less unaccounted money. If I still did not know what some transactions were (happens a lot at first import) - I just put them under Expenses:Unaccounted Expenses - thus you will be able to see how much money went who knows where. Just make/adjust some reports and save their configurations (so you can re-run quickly when new data comes in) after you have classified your transactions properly. Now the answer: even without balancing amounts exactly program is very useful as you still can track your monthly outgoings very well. So start learning about 5 main accounts and debits and credits, imho. But I think it really pays off to get to know more about accounting via GnuCash it is so useful and you learn a lot about this hundreds of years old double entry system that all accountants know. This started as a comment but then really go too long so I am posting an I am also using GnuCash just like you as a non-accountant. Assets:Checking, Assets:Savings, and Liabilities:Visa. You should now have 3 accounts with opening balances set. (press the Enter key, or click on the Enter icon). This is done by entering the $500 as aĬharge in the Visa account (or decrease in the Opening BalanceĪccount), since it is money you borrowed. Transaction (press the Enter key, or click on the Enter icon).įrom the Assets:Checking account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $1000, transferredįrom the Liabilities:Visa account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $500, transferredįrom Equity:Opening Balance. Money from a source account to a destination account. View your transactions in the other modes later, but for now let’sĮnter a basic transaction using the basic default style.įrom the Assets:Savings account register window, enter a basic 2 account transaction to set your starting balance to $1000, transferredįrom Equity:Opening Balance. Select View from the menu and check to make sure you are in Basic Ledger style. Open the Assets:Savings account register. To start filling in this chart ofĪccount, begin by setting the starting balances for the accounts.Īssume that there is $1000 in the savings account and $500 charged on Opening BalancesĪs shown earlier with the Assets:Checking account, the startingīalances in an account are typically assigned to a special accountĬalled Equity:Opening Balance. The further explanation from the GnuCash page is: 4.7.2. The tl dr is: use the Equity:Opening Balance to offset your original amounts. The GnuCash manual has a page with examples of opening new accounts.
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