Using GnuCash

Introduction

GnuCash is a complex piece of software with many features and possibilities. It requires some learning and experience to work fluently and effectively with it.

To get you started, it comes with a good Concepts Guide, that will introduce you to some basic accounting concepts and explains how GnuCash works with those principles.

A second helpful source of information is the GnuCash Manual, which is sort of a reference to all the menu options and dialogs in GnuCash. At the time of this writing, it is in need of an update as some new features in GnuCash aren't documented yet.

These two documents cover only a part of what GnuCash can do. This is to be expected as there are as many use cases as there are users of the tool. It would be impossible to contain all of these use cases in a manageable static document.

Instead, this page and the ones linked to below will show ways to deal with specific problems. The examples and solutions are provided by users of GnuCash, most of them use (or have used) these solutions in real world scenarios.

If you know a solution to a particular problem while using GnuCash, you are welcome to add it to these pages as well.

Alternatively you can send it to the GnuCash user mailing list (Note: you need to be subscribed before you can post to this list). Use a subject in the lines of "GnuCash tip" or something similar, so it is easily recognized.

To keep some overview, the examples and solutions are grouped per context in GnuCash.

Register Tips

Moving Multiple Transactions

There is no direct way to move a large number of transactions from one account to another in GnuCash.

If you are trying to move a small subset of an account's transactions, your best approach is to edit each transaction manually. You can speed this up somewhat by changing your register view to Transaction Journal mode, which will show all split lines at once. You may also find that copying the destination account and pasting it into the split line may help.

If you are trying move all (or MOST) of an account's transactions, you can get GnuCash to re-designate all your transactions at once by asking GnuCash to DELETE the account in question. For accounts that have transactions in them, GnuCash will ask whether you want to completely delete the transactions, or move them to a different account. Select the account you want all your transactions to go, and they will be moved. (To delete an account, open the Accounts window, select the account you want to delete, and click the Delete button).

Import transactions from another program

Easy way to import a large amount of transactions from another your program (import from bank isn't covered by this tip)

If you use another program that may produce accounting data, tell your programmer to use QIF format to easy import into GnuCash. QIF format is simple and other programs can easy produce it. GnuCash's QIF importer is also easy to use and comes with self explaining wizard incorporated.

You can find QIF format description on Wikipedia or ask uncle Google.

--Provided by Pietro B.

Reporting Tips

A single report that shows summary amounts for multiple months for multiple accounts

To create a single report that shows summary amounts for multiple months for multiple accounts (for example, monthly totals for expense accounts over the course of a year), you can accomplish this with a little creative thinking. The trick is to use Gnucash's Budgeting features.

1. First, create a Budget that includes the accounts upon which you ultimately want to base your report and a date range that is useful to you. Save this budget.
2. Next, create a budget report, and in the options for this report, deselect the "Show Budget Amounts" check box. The resulting report will list monthly transaction totals for each account in the budget.

This solution is not perfect (you must, for example, edit the budget to cover the date range you want, and then open the report), but it does give a spreadsheet-like summary of a subset of accounts by month.

--Provided by David T.

Quicken-like "Overview" of your accounts

Quicken provides an "overview" of your accounts -- a list of today's balances for checking, savings, credit cards, major assets and liabilities.

For something similar in GnuCash, run the Balance Sheet report, then go to Options to pick the accounts that you want to see in the overview. Then just leave that tab open, and every time you start GnuCash you'll have the overview. Click "reload" if you put in transactions and want to see how things have changed.

--Provided by Anthony Dardis

Alternatively just keep the "Accounts" tab open. It shows the current balances of all the accounts too, without having to run a report. However, I don't use the business functions, or scheduled transactions, so that might perhaps make a difference.

--Provided by Mike Leone

Displaying Split Account Details in Transaction Report

For a simple transaction like this:

<date> <ref no> "Cheques Received"
 <income account> "multiple payers"     <credit> £157.60
 <bank account>                         <debit>  £157.60

then on a Transaction Report for the bank account the details appear pretty much as above.

For clarity of the accounts, you might enter transactions with multiple splits referring to the same account. For example, the above transaction might well be entered like this:

<date> <ref no> "Cheques Received"
 <income account>  <first payer name>   <credit> £100.00
 <income account>  <second payer name>  <credit> £ 57.60
 <bank account>                         <debit>  £157.60

When this transaction is printed on the bank account's Transaction Report, then under "other account" it simply prints "split" instead of the account name.

To display the additional split detail, you need to set General -> Style = Multi-Line and then you need to turn on Display -> Account Name. Do NOT turn on Display -> Other Account Name.

You can choose whether or not to turn off the full account name using Display -> Use Full Account Name?

The Use Full Other Account Name? has no effect in this configuration.

--Provided by Derek Atkins (in response to Colin Scott)

Monthly Income/Expense Reports

You can export a GnuCash transaction report to HTML and then open the HTML file in Excel. You then have a ready-made data source from which you can create a pivot table with the transaction data grouped both by account and by period, with very few steps involved.

Two enhancements to the data to try are:
 (1) grouping the dates by month; and 
 (2) parsing multilevel account names into columns labeled "Account1", 
 "Account2", etc. using the ":" delimiter. 

This gives you a report that is very close to the monthly/quarterly/yearly income/expense report that MS Money and Quicken provide.

--Provided by Martin Cunningham on gnucash-users

Reporting in single file resp. in landscape format

Currently, this isn't supported. Via HTML export, however, both options are possible, with the help of htmldoc. Sample call for landscape in european A4 format, which also puts alle single html files into one compound pdf:

htmldoc  -t pdf14 --webpage --no-links --linkstyle plain --size 297x210mm --headfootsize 9
--header fff -f report.pdf *.html

Exporting a report to OpenOffice Calc

Sometimes a report needs to be laid out slightly differently than is possible in GnuCash. One way to do this is to export the report to OpenOffice Calc. GnuCash can't export directly into that format, but it can export to html. OpenOffice Calc can import such a html file. Here's what to do:

1. Create your report in GnuCash
2. With the report open in front of you, select File -> Export -> Export Report to save the report somewhere in html. Note: there is also a tool bar button that does exactly the same thing.
3. Open OpenOffice Calc
4. Select Insert -> Link to external data
5. In the popup window, use the "..." button to find your exported report and below, choose "html all", then click ok.

This should load report in a Calc sheet. From here you can make tweaks as you like.

Reports Included in GnuCash

This section (currently in progress; based on GnuCash 2.2.9) includes a small amount of information about the standard reports in GnuCash, including when they might be used and some of the options. Information about each report might include how the report is used, common alternatives, and some of the options that make the report adaptable to different situations.

Reports Menu (top-level)

Account Summary

Lists accounts and subaccounts, with a total of account balances as of a particular date. By default, shows accounts and totals down to third-level subaccounts.

• Report Usage:

This report provides an overview of all (or selected) accounts. The totals on this report (if shown) include all transactions to the beginning of each account, so the amounts may only be useful for asset and liability accounts that you reconcile, or expense accounts after you have "closed the books" to a particular financial period. (Closing the books is NOT a requirement in GnuCash.)

• Suggested Alternatives:

To generate a report of account totals over a particular period (especially if you do not close your books at regular intervals), you might consider using the #Income Statement, #Cash Flow, or #Budget Report.

• Report Options:
  • Accounts tab: Choose accounts to display; levels of subaccounts; Depth limit behavior (how to handle any accounts lower than the set level of subaccounts -- choosing between Recursive Balance, Raise Accounts, or Omit Accounts).
  • Commodities tab: Currency; Price Source (Average Cost, Weighted Average, Most Recent or Nearest in Time); Show Foreign Currencies; Show Exchange Rates
  • Display tab: Include accounts with zero total balances; Omit zero balance figures, Parent account balances (Account Balance, Subtotal, and Do not show); Parent account subtotals (Show subtotals, Do not show, or Text book style [experimental]); Display accounts as hyperlinks; Show accounting-style rules; Account balance; Account Code; Account Description; Account Type; Account Notes.
  • General tab: Report name; Stylesheet (Default, Easy, and Technicolor); Report Title; Company Name; Date.

Tax Report & TXF Export

Generates a report and a downloadable .txf file of taxable income and deductible expenses for a particular accounting period. To download the report data, choose the Export button on the toolbar and choose between html and .txf downloadable versions.

To use this report, you must use Edit --> Tax Options to identify which form the taxing authority uses for each income or expense account. (You can see but not modify the "Tax related" checkbox in Edit --> Edit Account.)

Transaction Report

This report lists the transactions in all accounts during a specified financial period. By default the report includes all accounts, subtotals the transactions by month and includes the totals for each account for the currently defined fiscal year.

Account Report

(The Account Report only appears on the Report menu when you have an account open in the main GnuCash window.) The Account Report produces a register of all transactions in the open account.

Account Transaction Report

(The Account Transaction Report only appears in the reports menu when you have an account open in the main GnuCash window.) The Account Transaction Report produces a report of the transactions for the current date in the open account. If you need to see transactions in other accounts or for different dates, you could use the #Transaction Report or Find ( Edit --> Find ) to create an ad-hoc report.

Assets & Liabilities (group)

Advanced Portfolio

The Advanced Portfolio report produces reports dependent upon price information collected by the optional stock price retrieval features of GnuCash. (If you have not installed and used the additional stock price retrieval software, the report will indicate an error.)

General Journal

The General Journal produces a register of all transactions (beginning to end) in order by date, showing the accounts and the amounts moved among them, and totals the Net Change by all currencies and assets. This report is not customizable by date or account, though you can include more or fewer details about the individual transactions, and whether or not to include running balances and totals for the credits and debits. If you need a report restricted to particular accounts, you might want to look at the #Transaction Report or open a particular account and choose the #Account Transaction Report.

As with most GnuCash reports, you can export the data into an html file for import into other programs.

Income & Expense (group)

Expense Barchart

The Expense Barchart (also known as Expense over Time) report shows a set of vertical bars, with the vertical axis indicating the amount, and the horizontal axis indicating time periods (such as quarters, months, or weeks). The report aggregates the amounts in the selected amounts. Report options enable you to adjust the horizontal and vertical sizes, step size (time periods), number of bars, and whether or not to include the detailed amounts in a table below the graph.

To create a chart for income accounts, see #Income Barchart.

Expense Piechart

The Expense Piechart report totals transactions for income accounts over a specified financial period, and presents the totals as graphical "wedges" of the aggregate total "pie." You might use such a report to get a "big-picture" overview of some of the largest expenses in your accounts. By default, the chart displays a maximum of 7 wedges, which limits the display the largest six wedges and combining all the remaining items into a seventh wedge marked "other."

To generate a pie chart display of your income accounts, use the #Income Piechart report.

Income Barchart

The Income Barchart (also known as Income over Time) report shows a set of vertical bars, with the vertical axis indicating the amount, and the horizontal axis indicating time periods (such as quarters, months, or weeks). The report aggregates the amounts in the selected amounts. Report options enable you to adjust the horizontal and vertical sizes, step size (time periods), number of bars, and whether or not to include the detailed amounts in a table below the graph.

To create a chart for expense accounts, see #Expense Barchart.

Income Piechart

The Income Piechart report totals transactions for income accounts over a specified financial period, and presents the totals as graphical "wedges" of the aggregate total "pie." You might use such a report to get a "big-picture" overview of some of the largest income sources in your accounts. By default, the chart displays a maximum of 7 wedges, which limits the display the largest six wedges and combining all the remaining items into a seventh wedge marked "other."

To generate a pie chart display of your expense accounts, use the #Expense Piechart report.

Income Statement

Also called "Profit & Loss" or "Revenue Statement." This report totals transactions for each of selected accounts over a specified financial period. By default it shows all Expense and Income accounts (down to 3 levels of subaccounts) for the current financial period.

• Report Usage

• Suggested Alternatives

• Report Options

Income vs. Day of Week

The Income vs. Day of Week report presents a pie chart showing the totals for selected income accounts totaled by the day of the week of the transaction. The report options enable you to make some adjustments (such as accounts, display options, and the date range) but the account selector only allows income accounts to be chosen. The report aggregates income transactions by day of week, not by any other period or category. Due to these limitations, the report may be considered a demonstration or an example to someone wanting to examine the source code for composing a useful custom report.

Stocks

• Add stock to portfolio
• Add historic stock quotes to the database
• Importing fund or stock prices from an OFX file