Chapter 3. Organizing Your Accounts

Table of Contents

3.1. Using Accounts vs. Categories
3.2. Types of GnuCash Accounts
3.2.1. Balance sheet accounts
3.2.2. Income and Expense Accounts
3.3. Putting It All Together

As explained in section 2.1, every transaction you record in GnuCash requires at least two accounts. An account is a record of either:

  1. changes in value of something you own or owe OR

  2. money that comes in or goes out

The first type of account represents the traditional Balance Sheet accounts: assets, liabilities and equity. These basically represent things you own or things you owe. The second type of account, called Categories in other financial programs like QuickenŽ, measures incoming money (income) or outgoing money (expenses).