In the screen shot both of the lines of the transaction (splits in Gnucash parlance) have accounts which are expense accounts. GnuCash is a double entry system so when you make a payment for a purchase money is taken out of your checking or savings account and given to the bank and this appears as an expense. Other programs like Quicken often hide this from you but in GnuCash it is explicit so any transaction records that money comes out of your checking account and is spent on a specific expense.
i.e. Debit Credit Asset:Checking Account $ 100 Expense:Car $100 is what you would expect to see for a purchase transaction That transaction in the screen shot is repayment of a loan. When a loan is first created you receive money from your bank into your checking account for example and you create a liability that records the fact that you have an obligation to repay the bank. This for example for a $10,000 loan will have splits as follows: Debit Credit Asset:CheckingAccount $10,000.00 Liability:Loan $10,000.00 When you make a payment of $400 on that loan, you reduce that liability ( ignore interest for the moment) Debit Credit Asset:Checking Account $400 Liability:Loan $400 and your transaction should have had that general form. ( I'm leaving out dates, description and the reconcile status and just concentrating on the accounts and money coming in and out). The use of debits and credits is not what you will see on your bank statement which is the banks' recording of its financial position, not yours. You will find an explantion of the basics of double entry accounting and how debits and credits apply in accounting and GnuCash in the GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide ( https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-guide/index.html) in the section called Basics and in subsequent sections how to handle loans credit cards etc in the section about Managing Personal Finances. Some time invested in reading this will be well worthwhile. The Help manual (https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v3/C/gnucash-help/help.html) is also useful for more button by button description of the GUi interface (or it was intended to be but in some parts the lines get a bit blurred between it and the guide). David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.