GnuCash

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GnuCash is the leading GPL'ed Desktop Financial Manager Application. Appropriate for personal and small business use, it is meant to be easy to use and full of features.

There is no registration required to read this wiki or download and install GnuCash, only to edit this wiki.

Installation

GnuCash has versions that run on Windows, macOS, and many different flavors of Linux and BSD.

Installation instructions for the different operating systems under which GnuCash operates are included at Installation.

Getting Help

If you have trouble using GnuCash, and the various documentation sources haven't helped you--or if you want to give some feedback, you can get help in several ways. See Getting Help for these options.

Available Documentation

Documentation for Users

Primary Instructional Documents

GnuCash offers two primary instructional documents:

• Manual - the reference for details of operating specific GnuCash menus, dialogs, and windows
• Guide - a concise introduction to double-entry accounting and tutorials on using GnuCash to perform a variety of accounting tasks. It is highly recommended that new users read at least the Getting Started section of the Guide.

These documents are accessible via the Help menu in the program, probably requiring Linux users to install an additional package called something like gnucash-docs using their package manager, or from the Documentation page on our website which also links the following variants:

• Translations of the

Manual are available in German, Italian, Japanese, and Portuguese, and the

Guide is also available in simplified Chinese.

The translations are not always recent and sometimes incomplete, but easier to understand from non-English users.

• Other Formats consist of PDF, ePub, and mobi, or read html documents online
• Nightly Builds contain the work in progress from the git repository for the stable branch

GnuCash wiki

This wiki includes extensive information regarding all aspects of GnuCash, contributed by the developers and users of GnuCash. Information in the wiki covers a broad variety of topics, and includes detailed technical information, as well as information that applies to specific use cases. Of particular interest on the wiki are:

• The GnuCash FAQ, which contains a collection of frequently asked questions about GnuCash, including administration, accounting, and glossary questions
• Using GnuCash, which collects real life experiences using GnuCash. You may find (user) solutions here that are not covered by the documentation.

Third Party Documentation

Third Party Documentation in Several Languages can be found in Documentation.

Documentation for Developers

The Application programming interface (API) is intended for people who want to use the GnuCash engine libgnucash in their own project:

stable branch

is daily generated from the sources using Doxygen.

future branch

will lead to the next mayor release. It will be activated after the first commit on that branch.

Using the API shows how to use it.

In addition it may be handy sometimes to have an overview of which parts of the gnucash code depend on which other parts. Dependency Graphs explains how to generate a dependency graph for this purpose.

Getting involved in the GnuCash project

The GnuCash Project is a volunteer-driven organization. We need your help to ensure that GnuCash survives and grows, and we need your help to help others.

There are many ways to contribute your knowledge and experience. Before you dig in, you may want to check out the GnuCash website for the latest news.

Note

This part of the wiki is intended to become the main repository of GnuCash developer documentation. Some formerly static pages have been moved here from the GnuCash website, but the move is not yet complete. Some remaining static pages may be out of date. Wherever a wiki article disagrees with a static web page on the Website, the wiki article here is more likely to be correct.

Here are a number of ways to get involved.

Mailing Lists

Subscribing to the mailing lists, and asking and answering questions there, is an excellent way to begin contributing the the success of GnuCash. See Mailing Lists for more.

Filing Bugs and Enhancement Requests

Occasionally, GnuCash will not work the way it was designed to work--or you have an idea for making GnuCash better. Improvements and fixes can be submitted using the Bugzilla bug tracker; more general suggestions can be made via the Uservoice pages.

Improving the Documentation

• Documentation Update Instructions. This page describes the process to change both the GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide and the Manual.

Localization

• Translations gives an overview of this process.
• How to adjust or create new Account Hierarchy Templates.

Developing the Application Code

Policy

• Our Development Process
• Coding Standards
• Testing

Procedures

• Git access
• Building GnuCash from source code.
• Some notes about the GnuCash XML format for the XML Backend.
• The schema for the SQL Backend.
• Adding Preferences: How to add new preferences.
• Creating Custom Reports
• Python Bindings

Other Development Notes

• Reminders for the Project Administration
• Mentions of other potentially useful Coder Tools (mostly profilers)

Future developments

• Our Release Schedule
• Future Roadmap

Historical Information

• Outdated WishList
• Budget History
• Credit Notes
• Old discussions about enhancement requests that have been implemented.
• Discussion about the License
• Special events
  • There was a Bounty Program in June / July 2013
  • GSoC Google Summer of Code