1.2. Features
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## 1.2. Features

### 1.2.1. Easy to Use

GnuCash has been designed from the ground up to be easy to use. Within a matter of minutes of using GnuCash you will be able to start entering your personal finance information and generating color graphs representing your financial status. If you can use the register in the back of your checkbook, you can use GnuCash. Type directly into the register, tab between fields, and use quick-fill to automatically complete the transaction. The interface is customizable from within the application itself.

- Easy to Use Menus: The GnuCash menu's have been designed to conform with the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. This means that the menus are easy to use, and similar in appearance to other GNOME applications.

- Documentation: GnuCash has both built in Help and extensive User Guide documentation.

- Import Methods: GnuCash supports many ways to input data besides manually entering every transaction. This is especially useful if you can access your bank accounts on-line, as one of these export methods is usually supported by most banks. This will allow you to spend less time entering data and more time analyzing the results.

  - Quicken Import File (QIF): Import Quicken QIF style files, a popular file format with many commercial personal finance software packages.

  - Open Financial Exchange (OFX): GnuCash is the first free software application to support the Open Financial Exchange protocol that many banks and financial services are moving to use.

  - Home Banking Computer Interface (HBCI): GnuCash is the first free software application to support the German Home Banking Computer Interface protocol which includes statement download, initiate bank transfers and direct debits.

- Reports: GnuCash comes with over 30 prebuild reports, including Account Summary, Income, Expenses, Transaction Report, Balance Sheet, Profit&Loss, Portfolio Valuation, and many others. Reports support graphical views of the data, including pie charts, bar charts, and scatter plots. The reports can be exported to HTML files, and are easily customizable.

- Scheduled Transactions: GnuCash has the ability to automatically create and enter transactions, remind the user when a transaction is due, give a choice of entering a transaction or postponing it and remove an automated transaction after a certain period.

- Mortgage and Loan Repayment Druid: used to setup a variable payment loan scheduled transaction.

- Easy Account Reconciliation: the integrated reconciliation application makes reconciling your GnuCash accounts with your bank statements easy.

- Multiplatform Compatibility: GnuCash is supported on a variety of platforms and operating systems. The list of fully supported operating systems (and platforms) for GnuCash v1.8.x is: GNU/Linux (x86, Sparc, PPC), FreeBSD (x86), OpenBSD (x86), Solaris (Sparc), and MacOS X (PPC). Previous versions of GnuCash have been known to work with the following list, but their current status is unknown: SGI IRIX (MIPS), IBM AIX 4.1.5 (RS/6000), Unixware 7 (Intel), and SCO OpenServer 5.0.4 (Intel).

### 1.2.2. Tracks Your Investments

GnuCash has a number of investment features. From simple certificates of deposit to publicly traded stocks, your can use GnuCash to track all your investments.

- Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios: Track stocks individually (one per account) or in portfolio of accounts (a group of accounts that can be displayed together).

- On-line Stock and Mutual Fund quotes: with GnuCash you no longer have to lookup the value of your stocks one at a time. The process can be automated, you will always see the latest values of your stocks.

### 1.2.3. International Support

GnuCash is truly an application that understands and works with users from all around the world. There are many built-in features in GnuCash to facilitate interaction in the international world we live in today.

- Native Languages: GnuCash has been fully translated into 7 languages: Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Dutch, English (US and UK), German, Italian, and Portuguese (Brazilian). More than 16 other language are partially supported.

- Multiple Currencies and Currency Trading: Multiple currencies are supported and can be bought and sold (traded). Currency movements between accounts are fully balanced when double-entry is enabled.

- New Multi-Currency Transaction Handling: GnuCash no longer requires separate currency exchange accounts to handle multiple currency transfers.

- International date handling: GnuCash understands that different countries display the date differently. You are able to work in the date format to which you are accustomed.

### 1.2.4. Business Support

GnuCash has many features to support the needs of the business accounting community.

- Accounts Receivable/Payable: GnuCash has an integrated Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable system. You can track Customers and Vendors, Invoicing and Bill Payment, and using different Tax and Billing Terms in a small business.

- Payroll: you can use GnuCash to track company payroll.

- Depreciation: you can use GnuCash to track depreciation of capital assets.

- Reports: a variety of ready-to-use business reports are included.

### 1.2.5. Accounting Features

For those knowledgeable in accounting, this is a listing of the specific accounting features GnuCash supports.

- Double Entry: When enabled, every transaction must debit one account and credit another by an equal amount. This ensures that the "books balance": that the difference between income and outflow exactly equals the sum of all assets, be they bank, cash, stock or other.

- Split Transactions: A single transaction can be split into several pieces to record taxes, fees, and other compound entries.

- Chart of Accounts: A master account can have a hierarchy of detail accounts underneath it. This allows similar account types (e.g. Cash, Bank, Stock) to be grouped into one master account (e.g. Assets).

- General Ledger: Multiple accounts can be displayed in one register window at the same time. This can ease the trouble of tracking down typing/entry errors. It also provides a convenient way of viewing a portfolio of many stocks, by showing all transactions in that portfolio.

- Income/Expense Account Types (Categories): These serve not only to categorize your cash flow, but when used properly with the double-entry feature, these can provide an accurate Profit&Loss statement.

### 1.2.6. What's New in v1.8

- Scheduled Transactions

  GnuCash now has the ability to automatically create and enter transactions, remind when a transaction is due, give a choice of entering a transaction or postponing it and remove an automated transaction after a certain period.

- Mortgage and Loan Repayment Druid

  Used to setup a variable payment loan scheduled transaction.

- Small Business Accounting Features

  GnuCash now can be used for Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill Payment, and using different Tax and Billing Terms in a small business.

- OFX Import

  GnuCash is the first free software application to support the Open Financial Exchange protocol that many banks and financial services are moving to use. The development of OFX and HBCI support has also resulted in an improved transaction matching system that more accurately picks duplicate transactions.

- HBCI Support

  GnuCash is the first free software application to support the German Home Banking Computer Interface protocol which includes statement download, initiate bank transfers and direct debits.

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