Gyle,

Whether you delete the imbalance account or not once it is empty is a user 
preference. Some dislike seeing the imbalance account in their books, and 
delete it if it is empty. Others (like myself and you) leave that account in 
place. I leave it because it just reappears again later anyways when you miss 
an entry. 

Also, I'll note that you made a misleading statement late in the first 
paragraph when you said that "If he deletes the entry, he will delete it from 
the other accounts as well." In this instance, I think you meant to say "If he 
deletes the **transaction,** he will delete it from the other accounts as 
well." It's a minor, yet significant, difference in terminology. An entry (as I 
understand) is the single line within a transaction, synonymous with the 
Gnucash term "split." The Transaction is made up of two or more splits/entries. 

Best, 
David T.

On June 18, 2022 2:57:01 PM EDT, Gyle McCollam <gmccol...@live.com> wrote:
>I agree that the matching step is critical when importing and the proper 
>account should be assigned during import.  I also agree that the OP needs to 
>understand Double Entry accounting better,  However, if he has "empty" 
>transactions in the imbalance account, my bet is that if he clicks on the 
>split icon in the toolbar, he will see his debit and credit accounts, plus the 
>empty imbalance account.  When correcting the imbalance entry, he needs to 
>open the split and click on the imbalance entry and change that to the proper 
>account.  I think he added the proper account, entered the amount, then 
>removed the amount from the imbalance account. Doing it this way you can't 
>delete the imbalance account, unless you "jump" to one of the other accounts 
>and delete it from there.  If he deletes the entry, he will delete it from the 
>other accounts as well, which he doesn't want to do.
>  You state that "Once all funds are re-allocated there should be no entries 
> remaining and you can safely delete that account."  You don't delete the 
> account, once there are no entries the account it is irrelevant and if you 
> have it set to not display unused accounts you won't see it unless in the 
> future there is another entry in there,
>
>
>Thank You,
>Gyle McCollam
>
>Gyle McCollam
>
>609.680.2326                     Mobile
>
>gmccol...@live.com<mailto:gmccol...@gyleshomes.com>           email
>
>________________________________
>From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+gylemc=gmail....@gnucash.org> on 
>behalf of David Carlson <david.carlson....@gmail.com>
>Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2022 1:59 PM
>To: Kevin T <neviki...@yahoo.com>
>Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
>Subject: Re: [GNC] rookie question Imbalance-USD
>
>First, Imbalance-USD is not an expense account but a top level account, and
>it is intended to be used only when an automated function is unable to form
>a fully balanced transaction.  You are correct that you can look under that
>account name to find unbalanced transactions if and when they exist.
>
>You might find it useful to re-read about double entry bookkeeping in the
>various help resources.  The F1 key should work while in GnuCash.
>
>We never use the term "Category" to refer to anything in GnuCash, not even
>"Expense" Accounts.
>
>The fact that you are finding "empty" transactions there indicates that you
>are not always deleting references to that account after re-allocating
>funds to the desired account.  Once all funds are re-allocated there should
>be no entries remaining and you can safely delete that account.  It will be
>re-created if new transactions appear.
>
>As you noticed, double-clicking is nearly useless in GnuCash.  It does work
>to change the sort order of columns in some windows.
>
>When using an import function, GnuCash is trying to learn what Account
>transactions have been applied to in the past so it can try to use the same
>account with similar transactions.  That is why it is important to use the
>"Matching" step to correct account assignments before the import process is
>closed.
>
>Lastly, text files in Windows OS always use CR-LF, but other OS's mostly
>use CR.  This creates confusion when viewing text files in other OS's.
>
>
>On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 11:54 AM Kevin T via gnucash-user <
>gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote:
>
>> I have been populating my accounts with CSV.  During the import, the tool
>> doesn't have any existing transactions to match, so most of them get
>> assigned the expense category 'Imbalance-USD'.
>> I am to the point of making sure that accounts are reconciled and
>> transactions don't have left over or bad account assignments.  Since
>> Imbalance is one of those expense categories I thought that would be a good
>> place to make sure things are clean.
>> I double click that expense category and the tab populates.Most of these
>> entries have no value in either the deposit or withdrawal columns.Some
>> do.Some even have a transfer account defined and values.
>> Sooo..  the stupid questions..
>> If they have a transfer account and values already specified, why is this
>> transaction in this expense category?How do I find out from which account
>> these transactions were originally created?  double clicking does
>> nothing.If they contain no values, is it safe to delete them?
>> I did import a number of times, trying figuring out the import behavior,
>> into temp or no longer existing accounts.  Are these left over after
>> deleting these accounts?
>> version 4.1 windows.
>> I have noticed that my original emails contain a ? for every CRLF that
>> occurs, when the mailing list distributes this.  I am using yahoo mail to
>> send this.   Is there a way to stop this ? mark 'feature'??
>>
>> Kevin
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>--
>David Carlson
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