So, answering the question. Internally, GnuCash has an enumeration
GnuAccountType, which that drop down is populated from. There are
conditionals all over the code that switch based on the account type. One
significant one for answering your question (Cash vs. Bank or any other
Asset account, Credit vs. generic Liability) is that there are two
mappings for human friendly column names for "debit" and "credit" actions.
Cash uses "Receive" and "Spend". Bank uses "Deposit" and "Withdraw". Asset
uses "Increase" and "Decrease". On the other side of the ledger, Credit
uses "Payment" (debit) and "Charge" (credit), generic Liability uses
"Decrease" (debit) and "Increase" (credit). Helps get past the
non-accountants "Wait, I debit the cash account when I put money in my
wallet???" confusion.
There are probably other differences, but that's what I found with a quick
search through the code. Note that the code is well structured, and
heavily commented with good comments, for example:
/* The type field is the account type, picked from the enumerated
* list that includes ACCT_TYPE_BANK, ACCT_TYPE_STOCK,
* ACCT_TYPE_CREDIT, ACCT_TYPE_INCOME, etc. Its intended use is to
* be a hint to the GUI as to how to display and format the
* transaction data.
*/
Hope that helps.
Ross
On Tue, Oct 1, 2024 at 12:24 PM Chris Miller via gnucash-user <
gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote:
> Hi Stephen and R,
>
> >> Isn't that just a bit like stating that "your brother is a person, and
> your
> >> wife is a person, so what's the difference? They are all persons?" I
> would
> >> suggest that there is a difference <grin>.
>
> Yes. Exactly. What is it? -- not your biology ridicule, but the original
> question I asked. Does GnuCash treat "Cash", "Bank", and "Asset"
> differently, or are these just "shortcuts" for users that don't realize
> that, as far as accounting is concerned, assets are assets?
>
>
>
> >> I hope this is helpful.
>
> Not really ...
>
>
>
> > I think you missed the thrust of his question -- namely, how does
> > GnuCash treat these differently?
>
> Yes. Thanks for the clarification.
> --
> Chris.
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