# Overview

## Introduction

GnuCash is the personal finance software package made for you. It is versatile enough to keep track of all your financial information, from the simple to the very complex. It is one of the few financial software packages that supports global currencies, and it is the only open-source program of its kind. And best of all, it is easy to use!

So what can GnuCash do for you? It can keep track of your personal finances in as much detail as you prefer. If you are just starting out, use GnuCash to keep track of your checkbook. You may then decide to track cash purchases, as well as credit card purchases, so you can better determine where your money is being spent. When you start investing, you can use GnuCash's investing features to help you monitor your portfolio. Buying a vehicle or a home? GnuCash can help you with planning the investment, as well as tracking loan payments. And if your financial records span the globe, GnuCash can provide all the multiple-currency support you need.

While GnuCash is well suited for personal finances, it is also powerful enough to use in business. There are many business features, from the integrated accounts receivable and payable systems, to the ability to construct tax tables. You will find these and the many other business features surprisingly powerful and easy to use.

## Features

### 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).

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

### 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.

## About this Book

The goal of this manual is to save you time and to get you started in GnuCash as quickly as possible. Each chapter follows a simple format, beginning with a Concepts discussion to introduce the general themes that the chapter will address, followed by How-To sections which address specific procedures and finally, a Putting It All Together section at the end of the chapter will give specific examples.

Beginning users will find the Concepts sections helpful, since they provide a reference and ideas for the best ways to track your finances. Experienced users can flip to the How-To sections to quickly scan procedures. These sections provide quick, to-the-point steps for accomplishing specific tasks. The Putting It All Together sections present real-world examples in the form of a tutorial, beginning with creation of a file in Chapter 2. Each successive chapter will build on the previous chapter's tutorial.

This manual is organized into 3 main parts, Getting Started (chapters 1-4), Managing Your Personal Finances (chapters 5-9), and Managing Your Business Finances (chapters 10-14).

The first part, Getting Started, contains 4 chapters that give you the basic information needed to begin to use GnuCash:

- Chapter 1: Overview

- Chapter 2: The Basics

- Chapter 3: Accounts

- Chapter 4: Transactions

Use this part as a quick-start guide; it will cover everything you need to get up and running in GnuCash.

The second part, Managing your Personal Finances, addresses common applications and features of GnuCash in greater detail. You will see more specific cases, based on frequently asked questions about applying GnuCash to everyday situations. Here are the applications and features covered in this part:

- Chapter 5: Checkbook

- Chapter 6: Credit Cards

- Chapter 7: Loans

- Chapter 8: Investments

- Chapter 9: Capital Gains

- Chapter 10: Multiple Currencies

The last part, Managing Your Business Finances, discusses the use of GnuCash in business accounting.

- Chapter 11: Depreciation

- Chapter 12: Accounts Receivable

- Chapter 13: Accounts Payable

- Chapter 14: Payroll

This manual also has an appendix, which contains extra information you might want to know:

- Appendix A: Migration Guide - Guide for former Quicken, MS Money or other QIF users

- Appendix B: Frequently Asked Questions

- Appendix C: Contributed Account Trees

- Appendix D: GNU Free Documentation License

Last but not least, a glossary and index help you quickly locate the topics you need.

## Top Ten Reasons to Use GnuCash

We've already discussed some of the general advantages of using GnuCash. Here are some specific features offered by GnuCash that may not exist in other programs.

1. Simple user interface

   GnuCash is a Linux financial software package that is as easy to use as a checkbook register. It's even easier to use than a paper register, because features like auto-completion and other entry shortcuts do most of the entry work for you.

2. Easy import

   GnuCash allows you to import your data from your on-line bank statement or from another software package using QIF (Quicken Interchange Format) files. An easy-to-use druid walks you through loading your files, reviewing them for changes, and importing them into GnuCash.

3. Statement reconciliation

   Reconcile those monthly statements quickly by entering the statement ending balance and checking off transactions. GnuCash helps you catch any discrepancies between your data and the statements you receive.

4. Investment tracking

   GnuCash offers a host of ways to track your investment portfolio. Special investment accounts simplify your data entry, and on-line update tools allow you to update the prices of your holdings as the markets change. Reports complete the picture, allowing you to analyze your investment decisions.

5. Multiple currency support

   GnuCash allows you to track multiple currencies. If you have bank accounts, investments or other financial data in different currencies, you can monitor these in GnuCash.

6. Customized reports and graphs

   Reports and graphs can give you valuable information for filing taxes, budgeting, or simply figuring out where all the money goes. GnuCash offers a variety of easy-to-use reports and graphs to help you analyze your financial position. It also gives you the freedom to customize your own reports to suit your unique needs.

7. Double entry

   To provide complete records, GnuCash uses the double entry method of bookkeeping. Double entry simply means that money doesn't just appear or disappear - an equal amount must come from one location and go to another location. By entering both locations, you provide information that GnuCash can then use to give you detailed reports of your data.

8. Sources of help

   A Tip of the Day dialog gives helpful tips to new users about GnuCash features. Within the program, a searchable Help menu guides you to the information you need or connects you to the GnuCash web page for further assistance. GnuCash also has strong developer and user communities, and it is easy to get help from these communities through mailing lists.

9. Shortcuts

   GnuCash offers many shortcuts to help you enter your data. When you type the first few characters of a common entry, it will automatically fill in the rest of the entry. You can also use copy, paste and duplicate functions to save typing time. Keyboard shortcuts let you quickly choose a menu option or to enter numerical data.

10. Open source

    GnuCash doesn't hide its methods from you. If you wonder how GnuCash computed a number, you can easily find it out. In addition, you can set preferences that tell GnuCash how much information to display to you. There is no secret code used in GnuCash - it continues to be an open-source program.

These are only a few of the advantages you'll discover when you start using GnuCash to track your financial information. Now get ready to enjoy the benefits of GnuCash for yourself!

## Installation

Installation of GnuCash can be simple, as most modern linux distributions come with GnuCash precompiled and ready to go. In fact, most likely, GnuCash is already installed. If you do not have GnuCash installed, the simplest method for installing it is to insert the installation CD that came with your distribution and follow the instructions.

The GnuCash home page contains detailed instructions on how to install GnuCash in the event your current distribution does not include it, or if you want to install a different version. You can also read the README file in the source code.