# The Basics

This chapter will introduce some of the basics of using &app;. It is recommended that you read through this chapter, before starting to do any real work with &app;. Next chapters will begin to show you hands on examples.

## Accounting Concepts

&app; is easy enough to use that you do not need to have a complete understanding of accounting principles to find it useful. However, you will find that some basic accounting knowledge will prove to be invaluable as &app; was designed using these principles as a template. It is highly recommended that you understand this section of the guide before proceeding.

### The 5 Basic Accounts

Basic accounting rules group all finance related things into 5 fundamental types of accounts. That is, everything that accounting deals with can be placed into one of these 5 accounts:

Account types

Assets

  Things you own

Liabilities

  Things you owe

Equity

  Overall net worth

Income

  Increases the value of your accounts

Expenses

  Decreases the value of your accounts

It is clear that it is possible to categorize your financial world into these 5 groups. For example, the cash in your bank account is an asset, your mortgage is a liability, your paycheck is income, and the cost of dinner last night is an expense.

### The Accounting Equation

With the 5 basic accounts defined, what is the relationship between them? How does one type of account affect the others? Firstly, equity is defined by assets and liability. That is, your net worth is calculated by subtracting your liabilities from your assets:

The static accounting equation

Assets - Liabilities = Equity

Furthermore, you can increase your equity through income, and decrease equity through expenses. This makes sense of course, when you receive a paycheck you become richer and when you pay for dinner you become poorer. This is expressed mathematically in what is known as the Accounting Equation:

The (dynamic) accounting equation

Assets - Liabilities = Equity + (Income - Expenses)

This equation must always be balanced, a condition that can only be satisfied if you enter values to multiple accounts. For example: if you receive money in the form of income you must see an equal increase in your assets. As another example, you could have an increase in assets if you have a parallel increase in liabilities.

The basic accounts relationships

A graphical view of the relationship between the 5 basic accounts. Net worth (equity) increases through income and decreases through expenses. The arrows represent the movement of value.

### Debits and Credits

The use of debits and credits in accounting and their effect on accounts of different types is often confusing when first encountered in accounting. The accounting equation introduced above is the key to understanding which accounts types are debited or credited and when. First of all we need to rearrange the expanded form a little bit with Assets on the left hand side of the equal sign and transposing any account type with a negative sign to the other side to obtain:

The rearranged accounting equation

Assets + Expenses = Liabilities + Equity + Income

With the accounting equation in this form, the accounts on the left hand side of the equal sign are known as debit balance accounts in accounting practice, that is the normal positive balance for these accounts is increased by debit entries to accounts of these types. Conversely credit entries to accounts of these types will decrease the balance of accounts of these types.

Similarly, the account types on the right hand side of the equal sign are known as credit balance accounts, that is the normal positive balance for these account types is increased by credit entries to the accounts of these types. Again debit entries to accounts of these types will reduce the balance in the account.

Summary of effect of debits (Dr) and credits (Cr) on the balance of accounts of the 5 account types

Account Type | Effect on Account Balance
--- | ---
| Debit (Dr) | Credit (Cr)
Assets | Increase | Decrease
Expenses
Liabilities | Decrease | Increase
Equity
Income

### Double Entry

The accounting equation is the very heart of a double entry accounting system. For every change in value of one account in the Accounting Equation, there must be a balancing change in another. This concept is known as the Principle of Balance, and is of fundamental importance for understanding &app; and other double entry accounting systems. When you work with &app;, you will always be concerned with at least 2 accounts, to keep the accounting equation balanced.

Balancing changes (or transfers of money) among accounts are done by debiting one account and simultaneously crediting another. Accounting debits and credits do not mean decrease and increase. Debits and credits each increase certain types of accounts and decrease others as described in the previous section. In asset and expense accounts, debits increase the balance and credits decrease the balance. In liability, equity and income accounts, credits increase the balance and debits decrease the balance.

In traditional double-entry accounting, the left column in the register is used for debits, while the right column is used for credits. Accountants record increases in asset and expense accounts on the debit (left) side, and they record increases in liability, income, and equity accounts on the credit (right) side. &app; follows this convention in the register.

This accounting terminology can be confusing to new users, which is why &app; allows you to use the common terms Deposit and Withdrawal. If you prefer the formal accounting terms, you can change the account register column headings to use them in the Accounts tab under Preferences (see the &app; Manual for more information on setting preferences).

Common use of the words debit and credit does not match how accountants use these words. In common use, credit generally has positive associations; in accounting, credit means affecting the right column of the ledger sheet of an account. This is associated with a decrease in asset and expense, but an increase of income, liability and equity accounts.

For more details see .

## Data Entry Concepts

When entering data in &app;, you should be aware of the 3 levels of organization in which &app; divides your data: files, accounts and transactions. These levels are presented in their order of complexity, one file contains many accounts and one account contains many transactions. This division is fundamental to understanding how to use &app;.

### Files

&app; stores information at the highest level in files. A file can be stored on your computer either as a single XML file (in all versions of &app;), or in a SQL database (in &app; version 2.4 and higher).

SQL is pronounced sequel, so in spoken and written language we would say a SQL database.

With the XML file format, &app; stores your data in an XML data file, usually in compressed format (although this can be changed in the General tab of the &app; Preferences).

With SQL storage, &app; stores your data in a SQL database under the database application you select (SQLite3, MySQL or PostgreSQL).

You will need one main file or database for each set of accounts you are maintaining. To learn how to create and manage &app; files, see .

If you think you might need more than one set of accounts, you might want to consult a professional accountant or bookkeeper before proceeding. Most users will probably have only one data file.

Backup files and log files are automatically generated by &app; when appropriate. Backup and log files are described in .

### Accounts

An account keeps track of what you own, owe, spend or receive. Each &app; file can contain any number of accounts, and each account can contain many sub-accounts up to an arbitrary number of levels. This simple feature gives &app; much of its power in managing your finances, as you will see in later chapters.

Examples of accounts include: checking accounts, savings accounts, credit card accounts, mortgages, and loans. Each &app; account tracks the activity for that real account, and can inform you of its status.

In addition, accounts are also used to categorize the money you receive or spend. For example, you can create expense accounts to track the money you pay on utilities or groceries. Even though these are not accounts that receive statements, they allow you to determine how much money is being spent in each of these areas.

Accounts will be covered in more detail in .

### Transactions

A transaction represents the movement of money among accounts. Whenever you spend or receive money, or transfer money between accounts, that is a transaction.

Examples of transactions are: paying a phone bill, transferring money from savings to checking, buying a pizza, withdrawing money, and depositing a paycheck. goes more in depth on how to enter transactions.

In double entry accounting, transactions always involve at least two accounts–a source account and a destination account. &app; manages this by inserting a line into the transaction for every account that is affected, and recording the amounts involved in each line. A line within a transaction that records the account and amount of money involved is called a split. A transaction can contain an arbitrary number of splits.

Splits in transactions will be covered in

## Running &app;

&app; can be run from your desktop main menu by selecting the associated menu entry.

Alternatively it can be run from a command line prompt with the command `gnucash`.

During start up, &app; will display the Splash Screen, where some information about the program (version number, build, etc.) and the loading process are displayed.

### Welcome to &appname; dialog

The very first time you open &app;, you will see the Welcome to &appname;! screen. This dialog includes three choices:

- Create a new set of accounts - Runs the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant (see ). Select this option if you want to be assisted in creating a set of accounts.

- Import my QIF files - Runs the Import QIF Files assistant (see ). Select this option if you already have Quicken files (`.qif` files) and wish to import them into &app;.

- Open the new user tutorial - Opens the &app; Tutorial and Concepts Guide. Select this option if you are completely new to &app; and accounting concepts.

It is possible to access each of these items after you have left this screen, but the Welcome to &appname;! screen will not reappear. To create a new set of accounts, see . To import QIF files, see .

### New Account Hierarchy Setup

The New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant helps you to create a set of &app; accounts. It will appear if you choose Create a new set of accounts in the Welcome to &appname;! menu, or when you select Ctrl N File New File . You may also use it to add a section of accounts to an existing book from the Accounts page by selecting Action New Account Hierarchy… .

This assistant will guide you through the creation of a Chart of Accounts. There are several steps in the assistant, which are outlined below.

1. The first screen briefly describes what this assistant does.

2. New Book Options appears only when creating a new book. Here you set various book attributes. This page has four tabs: Accounts, Budgeting, Business, and Counters. These items are explained elsewhere in the Guide, and can be changed at any time from Ctrl Enter File Properties .

3. Choose Currency sets the hidden root account currency and the default currency for new accounts. The offered default is based on the computer locale settings. Choose this carefully: Not only does it set the default currency for creating new accounts, it is the "Home" currency for the book and becomes the default currency for all stock pricing and foreign currency exchange rates. While it can be changed by rerunning the New Account Hierarchy Setup Assistant from the Action menu, doing so after you've created transactions is risky.

4. Choose accounts to create provides a variety of accounting categories that may be added to the book. There are two main panels: On the left the list of categories with a selection check box next to each one and on the right the accounts that will be added by the highlighted category.

   Above the Categories list you'll find two list-buttons, one for language code and the other for country code. The initial selection is again based on your computer's locale settings. You may select any language and country combination that suits your needs.

   The New Account Hierarchy Setup Assistant can't process selections from more than one locale at a time, so if you need to select segments from multiple locales—perhaps because the categories for your primary locale are intended to extend those of another country—you'll need to run the assistant more than once from the Action menu.

5. Setup selected accounts presents the accounts from the categories you selected on Choose accounts to create in a non-collapsible tree view with four or five columns depending on whether or not you're creating a new book:

   - Account Name. This is editable, just click in it or select the row and press Enter.

   - Type Not editable. This is the type of the account.

   - Placeholder accounts (accounts that are intended only to collect sub-accounts and not to have transactions themselves). You may change this by checking to make an account a placeholder or unchecking to make it a regular account.

   - Opening Balances can accept a value for new non-placeholder accounts that are not of type Equity, as existing accounts already have balances, placeholder accounts can't have transactions, and Equity can't have an opening balance.

     Opening Balance entry isn't obvious until you click in it. You must move out of the entry by clicking somewhere or by pressing Tab or Enter before clicking Next or your entry will be discarded.

   - Use Existing appears only when you've started the New Account Hierarchy Setup Assistant from the Action menu. It indicates whether an account already exists. It's not editable.

6. Finish account setup is the last screen and gives you a final option to cancel the process, back up to change something, or apply to confirm your choices. If you're creating a new book, &app; will present a dialog to select a backend and either a file to save it or database server, database name, and credentials to create a MySQL or PostgreSQL database if GnuCash was built with those features and you have the necessary dependencies installed.

   If you choose to cancel, any selections you have made up to this point will be lost.

### Tip of the Day

&app; provides a Tip of the Day screen to give helpful hints for using the program:

The Tip of the Day

This image shows the Tip of the Day.

These tips provide useful information for beginning users. To view more of the tips, click Forward to continue. If you do not wish to see this screen box on start-up, deselect the box next to Show tips at startup. When you have finished viewing the helpful tips, click Close to close the Tip of the Day screen.

### Account Tree Window

You should now see the Accounts window, which appears as shown below. The exact layout of the account tree will depend on which default accounts you selected during the New Account Hierarchy Setup. In this example, the Common Accounts are shown.

The basic accounts relationships

This image shows the Accounts window.

The Account Tree window (also known as a Chart of Accounts, or CoA) provides an overview of the data contained in the current file. It contains a list of account names and their current balances.

From this window, you can open the register of any account either by double-clicking the account name, right clicking the account name and selecting Open Account from the menu, or by using the Open button on the toolbar. &app; allows you to have as many account registers open as you wish. For more information on using account registers, see .

Clicking the small triangle to the left of an account that has children will expand the tree view showing child accounts.

At the top of this window is the Titlebar, which displays the file name for this set of accounts (once you have saved the file.) Below that is the Menubar. You can access the menu options by either clicking on these menu headings or by using shortcuts and access keys (see ). Next is the Toolbar, which contains buttons for the most common functions.

The account tree appears below the Toolbar. Once you have started creating accounts, the account names will appear in the account tree. You can customize which headings show up by using the small down-arrow at the far right just above the account tree.

At the bottom is the Statusbar, which tells you information about what you own (Net Assets) and how much money you have made (Profits).

### Account Register Window

Account Register windows are used to enter and edit your account data. As the name suggests, they look similar to a checkbook register.

The Checking Account Register

This image shows the Checking Account - Register with several transactions.

explains more about account register windows and how to enter data into them. For now, note that the parts of an account register window are similar to the parts of the account tree window described earlier. The Titlebar at the top contains the account name. Below that, the Menubar contains menu options related to the account register. Toolbar buttons simplify common data entry functions. The Statusbar at the bottom of the window, displays some account balances covered in . At the bottom of the account register window, information appears about the current location of the cursor.

In the register windows, you can resize the various columns that &app; displays, but keep in mind that the Description and Balance columns behave differently from other columns.

The Description column is designed to expand automatically to fill all unused horizontal screen space. Therefore you should set the widths of all your other columns before setting the Description column width.

The Balance column must be resized by double-clicking on the column heading.

### Toolbar Buttons

Both the account tree window and the account register window contain Toolbar buttons. These buttons provide quick access to common functions such as Save and Open in the account tree window and Record and Delete in the account register window. If you are not sure what a button does, move the mouse pointer over that button, and you should see a description of the function appear.

Here is a summary of the account tree window buttons:

Account tree window buttons

Save

  Save the current file to disk

Close

  Close the current notebook page

Open, Edit, New and Delete

  These are functions related to accounts. They are discussed in .

Register-specific buttons are discussed in .

### Tab Bar

&app; uses a tabbed model that allows you to open multiple account registers and reports simultaneously. Each open window (which can include account registers, reports, or Scheduled Transactions windows) is given a tab on this bar that you can click to view that window. Tabs can be configured in Preferences to appear along any side of the &app; window.

To see the full name for a tab, hover the mouse pointer over an account window tab. If more tabs are open than can be displayed across the window, some tabs will not display.

1. You can move through all tabs by clicking the arrows on either end of the tab bar.

2. You can also change the alignment of the tab bar by changing the Tab Position in The Preferences window, Windows tab.

3. A complete list of tabs can be viewed by right-clicking the Tab Bar and any tab can be selected by clicking it.

### Menu Items

The account tree window and the account register window both contain menu headings in a Menubar. Clicking on a menu heading brings up the menu items for that heading.

You can click on the account tree menu headings and then move the mouse pointer over the menu items to see what they do. As the pointer moves over a menu item, a description of the item appears in the lower left-hand corner of the window (inside the Statusbar). To select a menu item, click on it.

You can also access the most common menu items in a window by right-clicking the mouse anywhere in that window. In the account tree window, this will bring up a list of account items. In the account register window, this will bring up a list of transaction items.

Other ways of accessing menu items are through keyboard shortcuts and access keys, described next.

### Menu Shortcuts

All of the menu items have access keys which are marked by underlined characters in the menu names. Pressing the Alt key with the underlined character in the menu heading will bring up the menu items for that heading. Once the menu items are displayed, type the underlined character in the menu item to activate it. For example, typing Alt F in the main window brings up the File menu, then typing S will save the file. Access keys are fixed and cannot be changed by users.

Some of the more commonly used menu items also have shortcut keys that directly activate the command without having to traverse the menu structure. These shortcuts typically use the Ctrl key, although they can use any key combination. Menu shortcuts are displayed at the end of each menu item.

## Storing your financial data

### Overview

&app; offers several formats for storing your financial data. The default file storage format is XML, while SQL storage is available in SQLite, MySQL, and PostgreSQL formats. Users can choose a file format for new files from File Save and for existing files from File Save As... dialogs.

The XML storage format is a text file that by default is compressed, which is a preference that is set at Edit Preferences General Compress files. SQLite storage is also available, and stores your data in a single file on your system, like the XML format. However, internally, an SQLite file is managed as a database. The MySQL and PostgreSQL storage options require access to a MySQL or PostgreSQL database server and the installation of additional database drivers on your machine.

Users can change the format at any time by using File Save As... . This will create a copy of the data file in the selected format.

### Storage Comparison and Recommendations

Each storage format has benefits and shortcomings that users should consider for their needs and abilities. See the below for further details.

The XML format is the most stable and established, and for this reason, it is recommended for most users. SQL storage was added for the 2.4 release and has become an increasingly popular choice for users. The SQLite format allows users to realize the benefits of SQL storage without the overhead of installing or managing a full DBMS. MySQL and PostgreSQL require the installation of MySQL and PostgreSQL DBMS, respectively, and are best maintained only by experienced database administrators.

Use of a SQL back end for storage implies to many that &app; has fully implemented DBMS features, including multi-user and incremental data manipulation. However, &app; does not currently implement these features, although it is a long term goal of the development team.

### Storage Comparison Table

Storage Comparison

| XML | SQLite | MySQL | PostgreSQL
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
Availability | Built-in | Depends on packaging The SQL backends rely on additional packages. These are included in the macOS and Microsoft Windows application bundles and installed automatically by GnuCash's flatpak installer. Linux distribution users may need to explicitly install the one they want with their package manager. Look for a package named something like libdbd-sqlite3, libdbd-mysql, or libdbd-pgsql for SQLite3, MySql, and Postgresql respectively.
File extension | gnucash | N/A MySQL and PostgreSQL place data within their own storage system.
Additional software | None | MySQL | PostgreSQL
Additional expertise | None | Database Administrator
Compression | gzip | N/A
File Save | On command | On commit
Multi-user | No | No | No | No

### Creating a file

To create a new &app; file do the following:

1. From the &app; Menubar, choose File New File . The New Account Hierarchy setup assistant will start.

   If you are running &app; for the first time, you will be presented with the Welcome to &appname;! screen. This screen is described in detail in the &app; manual.

2. Set your preferences in the assistant and move through the screens with the Forward, Cancel and Previous buttons.

### Saving data

Follow these steps to save the file under your preferred name:

1. Choose File Save As... from the Menubar or select the Save Toolbar button. &app; will bring up the save window.

2. Select the Data Format of the file you are saving from the drop down list. The default selection is xml but if you have set up a database back end you can change to that format.

   Depending on the selected Data Format the window can change as described in the following.

3. - If you selected xml or sqlite3 you will see a screen like this:

     Save screen when xml or sqlite3 is selected.

     This image shows the Save screen when the selected Data Format is xml or sqlite3.

     Type your chosen filename in the Name field. It is not necessary to specify an extension when you write the file name. &app; will automatically add the extension `.gnucash` to the file.

     The `.gnucash` extension was introduced in the 2.3 series of &app;. For already existing files, the extension will never be changed. So if you open an existing file named `Myoldfile`, that name won’t be changed if the file is saved. You might use the Save As... command and give the file a new name in order to have it saved with the extension `.gnucash`.

     Select the path where the file will be saved by browsing the tree in the lower panes.

     Click on the Create Folder button to create a new folder with a custom name in the selected path.

   - If you selected mysql or postgres Data Format, you will see a screen like this:

     Save screen when mysql or postgres is selected.

     This image shows the Save screen when the selected Data Format is mysql or postgres.

     Enter in this window the Database Connection information: Host, Database, Username and Password.

     Saving to mysql or postgres requires the proper permissions in that database, that is you need to have the permissions to create a new database with the given database name, or you need to have write access to an existing database with the given database name.

4. Click the Save As button to save the file.

If you are keeping track of finances for a single household, you need only one file. But if you are also tracking business finances or want to keep data separate for some reason, then you will need more than one file.

Before ending each &app; session, be sure to save your data changes using File Save or the Save Toolbar button.

As it is very important to save your data frequently to avoid losing them for whatever reason, &app; is able to automatically save the opened file every a certain amount of time. This interval can be set in the General tab under Edit Preferences ( GnuCash Preferences on &mac;). Keep in mind that this option is relevant only if you are saving in XML format. If you are working with a database, the Save button and the Save menu entry will be grayed out because changes are stored right away.

### Opening data

To open an existing file or database, select File Open from the menu. In the window that will open, select the Data Format. If you selected File choose the file you want to open by browsing the folders in the lower panes. Else, enter the required Database Connection information.

&app; keeps a list of the recently opened files. Open the File menu and you will see listed the names of recently opened files. Click on the one you want to load to open it.

### Duplicating an Account Hierarchy

In some cases, it might be useful to duplicate the structure of an existing data file in a new file. For example, you might want to try out new accounting techniques without corrupting your actual accounting data, or you might need to follow accounting guidelines that require you to close your books at the end of the year and begin each year with a fresh set of books.

&app; allows you to create an empty copy of your Chart of Accounts simply by selecting File Export Export Accounts . When you select this command, you are asked to provide the name for the new empty file, and &app; creates a new data file that contains only your account hierarchy (that is, there is no transaction data). Once saved, the new file can be opened like any other &app; data file as described above.

## Backing Up and Recovering Data

&app; creates several types of files to help ensure that your data is not lost. If you look in the folder where your saved file resides, you may see other files generated by &app; with the following extensions: `.gnucash`, `.log`, `.LCK`, `.LNK` in the same directory as your primary data file. What each of these files does is presented below.

The following sections are relevant only if you are saving your financial data in the XML format

          $ ls
          myfile.gnucash
          myfile.gnucash.20100414185747.gnucash
          myfile.gnucash.20100414223248.log
          myfile.gnucash.20100415114340.gnucash
          myfile.gnucash.20100415154508.log
          myfile.gnucash.20100415173322.gnucash
          myfile.gnucash.20100415194251.log
          myfile.gnucash.7f0982.12093.LNK
          myfile.gnucash.LCK

### Backup file (.gnucash)

Each time you save your data file, a backup copy will also be saved with the extension `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash`. This backup file is a complete copy of your previous data file, and the filename format refers to the data file, year, month, day and time of the backup. For example, the filename `myfile.gnucash.20100414185747.gnucash` indicates this is a backup copy of the file `myfile` saved in the year 2010, April 14, at 6:57:47 p.m.

To restore an old backup file, simply open the `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` file with the date to which you wish to return. Be sure to save this file under a different name.

`.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.xac` instead of the actual extension `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash`. So if you upgrade from the 2.2 series to the 2.4 series, you may end up with both `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.xac` and `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` backup files in your directory.

### Log file (.log)

Each time you open and edit a file in &app;, &app; creates a log file of changes you have made to your data file. The log file uses a similar naming format as the backup files: `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.log`. Log files are not a full backup of your data file - they simply record changes you have made to the data file in the current &app; session.

In case you exit &app; inadvertently, possibly due to a power outage or a system wide crash, it is possible to recover most of your work since the last time you saved your &app; file using this log file. This is the procedure:

1. Open the last saved &app; file.

2. Go to File Import Replay &appname; .log file and select the one .log file with the same date as the saved file you just opened. Make sure that you picked the right .log file, or you will possibly wreak havoc in your accounts.

Log replaying will recover any transaction affecting the balance entered since the last save, including those created from scheduled transactions and business features (invoices, bills, etc.).

Changes to the scheduled transactions, invoices or bills themselves are NOT recovered, and their transactions that were recovered may not be properly associated with them, and should thus be double-checked. Especially for business transactions, you may have to delete and re-create some of them. If you do not, although the balance will be correct, some reports may not.

### Lock files (.LNK and .LCK)

You may occasionally see `.LNK` and `.LCK` files appear. These do not store any data, but they are created to prevent more than one user from opening the same file at the same time. These files are automatically created when you open the file, to lock it so no one else can access it. When you close your &app; session or open another file, &app; unlocks the first data file by deleting the `.LCK` and `.LNK` files.

If &app; crashes while you have a data file open, the `.LCK` and `.LNK` files are not deleted. The next time you try to open &app;, you will get a warning message that the file is locked. The warning message appears because the `.LNK` and `.LCK` files are still in your directory. It is safe to choose Yes to open the file, but you should delete the `.LNK` and `.LCK` files (using a terminal window or your file manager). Once those files are deleted, you will not get the warning message again unless &app; crashes.

### File Management

So which files should you keep around? Keep your main data file, of course. It’s a good idea to keep some of the more recent `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` backup files, but you can safely delete the `.log` files since they are not complete copies of your data.

If you upgraded from a &app; version prior to 2.4, you may also have backup files in the old `.xac` format. For these files you can apply the same principle described above for `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` backup files.

You should also delete any `.LCK` and `.LNK` files that you see after closing &app;. If you decide to back up your data file to another disk manually, it’s enough to back up the main data file - not the `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` backup files.

By default &app; will automatically delete any `.log` and `.YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.gnucash` backup files that are older than 30 days. You can change this behavior in the &app; preferences in the General tab under Edit Preferences ( GnuCash Preferences on &mac;).

## Migrating &app; data

Sometimes you may need to move your financial data and &app; settings to another machine. Typical use cases are when you buy a new computer or if you want to use the same settings over two different operating systems in a dual boot configuration.

### Migrating financial data

Migrating &app; financial data is as simple as copying `.gnucash` files with a file manager if you know where they are saved. If you can’t remember where a file is stored but you can open it directly within &app;, save it in the desired path from within &app;.

All other files in the folder are either backups or log files. It won’t do any harm to copy them too, but it’s not likely to do any good, either.

### Migrating preferences data

Preferences are stored in three different locations: one for &app; preferences, one for reports, and one for online banking settings. Preferences are managed by gsettings, reports are managed by &app; itself, and online banking is managed by aqbanking. If you do not use online banking, then you will not have this folder on your machine.

Where the &app; preferences are stored varies depending on your operating system (see , , and ). To back up and transfer your entire installation, you must copy these preferences as well.

Application Settings Locations

Operating system | folder
--- | ---
Unix | &app; preferences are stored in dconf. You can use the commands `dconf dump /org/gnucash/` on the old machine and `dconf load /org/gnucash/` on the new machine to migrate your preferences.
&mac; | `~/Library/Preferences/gnucash.plist`
&win; | The preferences are stored in the &win; registry `HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/GSettings`

Saved Reports Locations

Operating system | folder
--- | ---
Unix | `&dir-data;` Up to &app; 2.6.21 it was `&dir-old;`
&mac; | `~/Library/Application Support/gnucash`
&win; | `Documents and Settings/Username/.gnucash` or `Users/Username/.gnucash`

Online Banking Settings Locations

Operating system | folder
--- | ---
Unix | `~/.aqbanking`
&mac; | `~/.aqbanking`
&win; | `Documents and Settings/Username/.aqbanking`

On Unix and &mac;, these folders will generally not display in the file manager. You must set the file manager to show hidden files and folders to see them.

On Unix and &mac;, the ~ symbol means the `home` folder.

## Putting It All Together

This section begins a tutorial that will continue throughout this book. At the end of each chapter, you will see a Putting It All Together section that walks you through examples to illustrate concepts discussed in that section. Each Putting It All Together section builds on the previous one, so be sure to save your file for easy access.

Let’s get started!

1. First, let’s create a file to store your real data. Open &app; and select File New File from the Menubar. This will start the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant that allows you to create several accounts at once.

   If you are running &app; for the first time, you will be presented with the Cannot find default values screen which is described in details in the &app; manual.

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Introduction

   This image shows the first screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant.

   The first screen of the assistant gives you a description of what the assistant does. Click the Forward button to proceed to the next screen.

2. In the second screen, set the New Book Options on the different tabs, then press the Forward button. You can also update these options later using File Properties . For details of these options, see the &app; Manual, chapter Customizing GnuCash, Book Options.

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Book Options

   This image shows the second screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant where you select the Book Options.

3. In the third screen, select the currency to use for the new accounts from the dropdown list. Then press the Forward button.

   The currency you select here, will be assigned to all the accounts created in this assistant.

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Currency Selection

   This image shows the third screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant where you select the Currency.

4. In the fourth screen select the Common Accounts group in the Categories pane. Then press the Forward button to proceed.

   If you want, you can select one or more of the predefined account-groups here. For more information on account types, see .

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Account Selection

   This image shows the fourth screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant where you choose the various Accounts.

5. In the fifth screen you will be able to set an Opening Balance on each of the accounts, as well as indicate if the account should be a Placeholder. As these features will be described in next chapters, leave all as configured by &app; and click Forward to open the last screen of the assistant.

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Account Setup

   This image shows the fifth screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant where you can set Opening Balance.

6. In the last screen of the assistant, click Apply to create all the accounts and leave the assistant.

   New Account Hierarchy Setup: Finish

   This image shows the last screen of the New Account Hierarchy Setup assistant.

7. After pressing Apply in the previous window, you will be presented with the save dialog. Select the XML Data Format, Name the file as `gcashdata_1`, select the folder where to save the file (remember it as the data file will be used in the tutorials throughout this manual), and finally press the Save as button.

   Your main window should now look something like this:

   Tutorial: Starting Account View of the Test File