Chapter 1. Getting Started with GnuCash
"For years I've used a spreadsheet to manage my finances. Last November, I discovered GnuCash. I learned rather quickly that I was reinventing the wheel with my spreadsheet."—extracts from the blog of a new user of GnuCash.
GnuCash is a personal and small business bookkeeping and accounting software. In this book, we address the needs of self-employed, micro enterprises, home businesses, Small Office/Home Office (SOHO), and other small businesses. We also include a chapter on how non-profits could use GnuCash for bookkeeping and accounting.
As a small business owner, partner, or leader, here is what you can do with GnuCash:
Maintain your accounts using an interface that has the familiar look and feel of a check register
Use canned reports and charts or customize and save them for reuse
Use your bank and credit card statements to double check your entries through smart reconciliation
Automate repetitive work by setting up scheduled transactions
Create a Trip Planner to reach your business goals using GnuCash budgets
Map GnuCash accounts to your income tax schedules to make tax times less stressful
Create invoices for credit sales and keep track of unpaid invoices
Get reminders for vendor bills when due as well as process employee expense vouchers
Print 3-on-a-page and voucher checks, with memos as well
Charge state, county, and local sales tax and print statements to attach to payments
Use your mobile phone to capture expenses while on the go
Migrate transaction data from other accounting applications
Avoid redundant data entry by integrating with other applications
Create your own reports and charts using popular spreadsheet software
Account for foreign currency transactions
Maintain accounts of non-profits
This should give you a taste of what is to come before you dive deep into the chapters in this book.
The core function of accounting software is to allow you to keep track of your business transactions in an orderly manner. Accountants call this bookkeeping. In plain English, bookkeeping is nothing but keeping a meticulous record of all the financial transactions of a business. But before you can record the transactions of a business, you need proper places to record them. In other words, you need to set up accounts to enter the transactions into. "Account" is a term used by GnuCash for grouping a set of similar transactions. For example, you can have an account named "Office Supplies" to record all transactions related to buying stationery. Some other accounting applications call this a "Category". So, our first task is to get started with creating the accounts. We are going to use a built-in template provided by GnuCash to set up an account tree.
Why does a small business need an account tree? Think of the account tree as the table of contents of a book. A book is generally organized into chapters, sections, and subsections. With the help of a table of contents, you can find what you are looking for easily in a large book. In a similar manner, your business might have many thousands of transactions in a year. If you organize your accounts in a convenient tree, you can find transactions when needed as well as create reports on different kinds of expenses and so on.
In this chapter, we will:
Walk through the steps to install GnuCash on a Windows PC
Quickly create the "Table of contents" for the accounts of a typical small business
Learn how to tweak this "Table of contents" further to suit the needs of your specific business
Enter account opening balances
Output this "Table of contents" to send to your accountant for review
Review the strengths and limitations of GnuCash
Tip
How do I pronounce GnuCash?
Some people use the proper "Guh-noo-cash" and others prefer the easier "NewCash". Go by whatever works for you.
