The GnuCash online manual has lots of helpful information. You can access the manual under the Help menu.
Mailing lists are the preferred form of communication in the GnuCash community. For announcements of new releases, user groups etc. see the table at https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists
The GnuCash developers are easy to contact. As well as several mailing lists, you can chat to them live on IRC! Join them on #gnucash at irc.gimp.net
You can easily import your existing financial data from Quicken, MS Money or other programs that export QIF files or OFX files. In the File menu, click on the sub-menu Import and click on QIF or OFX file, respectively. Then, follow the instructions provided.
If you want to know in which directories your recent GnuCash files are stored, hover over one of the entries in the history menu\n(File[->Most Recently Used-List]).\nThe full path is displayed in the status bar.
If you are familiar with other financial programs such as Quicken, note that GnuCash uses accounts instead of categories to track income and expenses. For more information on income and expense accounts, please see the GnuCash online manual.
It is possible to change which columns display in the Chart of Accounts. Just locate the triangle at the far right of the column headings, and click it to see the different columns available.
Click the right mouse button (control-click in Mac OS X) in the Accounts tab of the main window to bring up the account menu options. Within each register, clicking the right mouse button brings up the transaction menu options.
Create new accounts by clicking the New button in the main window tool bar. This will bring up a dialog box where you can enter account details. For more information on choosing an account type or setting up a chart of accounts, please see the GnuCash online manual.
Every transaction has a \"Notes\" field where you can put useful information.\n\nTo make it visible\nselect \"View\" in the menu bar and check \"Double Line\" or\ncheck \"Double Line View\" in Preferences:Register Defaults.
To enter multiple-split transactions such as a paycheck with multiple deductions, click the Split button in the tool bar. Alternatively, in the View menu, you can choose the register style Auto-Split Ledger or Transaction Journal.
As you enter amounts in the register, you can use the GnuCash calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Simply type the first value, then select '+', '-','*', or '/'. Type the second value and press Enter to record the calculated amount.
Quick-fill makes it easy to enter common transactions. When you type the first letter(s) of a common transaction description, then press the Tab key, GnuCash will automatically complete the remainder of the transaction as it was last entered.
Type the first letter(s) of an existing account name in the Transfer register column, and GnuCash will complete the name from your list of accounts. For subaccounts, type the first letter(s) of the parent account, followed by ':' and the first letter(s) of the subaccount (e.g. A:C for Assets:Cash).
Want to see all your subaccount transactions in one register? From the Accounts tab in the main window, highlight the parent account and select Edit->Open Subaccounts from the menu.
When entering dates, you can type '+' or '-' to increment or decrement the selected date. You can use '+' and '-' to increment and decrement check numbers as well.
To switch between multiple tabs in the main window, press Control+Page Up/Down.
In the reconcile window, you can press the spacebar to mark transactions as reconciled. You can also press Tab and Shift-Tab to move between deposits and withdrawals.
To transfer funds between accounts with different currencies, click on the Transfer button in the register toolbar, select the accounts, and the Currency Transfer options for entering the exchange rate or the other currency's amount will be available.
You can set the Security Editor screen to display the Quote Source of a security, which makes it easy to see which online sources your securities use. Click the triangle at the far right of the column headings to change the display.
You can pack multiple reports into a single window, providing all the financial information you want at a glance. To do so, use the Sample & Custom->\"Custom Multicolumn Report\" report.
Style Sheets affect how reports are displayed. Choose a style sheet for your report as a report option, and use the Edit->Style Sheets menu to customize style sheets.
To raise the accounts menu in the transfer field of a register page, press the Menu key or the Ctrl-Down key combination.
The scheduled transaction editor comes with a very flexible frequency configurator. Basic frequencies to schedule a transaction include daily, weekly and monthly. But more advanced schemes can be set up as well. Some examples:\n\nTo schedule a transaction every three weeks, you can choose the weekly basic frequency and then set 'Every 3 weeks'.\n\nTo schedule a transaction every year you can choose the monthly basic frequency and then set 'Every 12 months'.
If you work overnight, you should close and reopen your working registers after midnight, to get the new date as default for new transactions. It is not necessary to restart GnuCash.
To search through all your transactions, start a search (Edit->Find…) from the main accounts hierarchy page. To limit your search to a single account, start the search from that account's register.
To visually compare on screen the contents of 2 tabs, in one of the tabs, select Window->New Window with Page from the menu to duplicate that tab in a new window.
You can assign or modify keyboard shortcuts for many GnuCash actions. See https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Keyboard_Shortcuts.
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