Accounts

Accounts are what you use to organize how you spend your money and where it comes from. Account structure can be changed to organize the display of information to suit your specific needs.

Typically, you will have a separate jGnash account for each savings, checking, investment account, etc. that you have at a financial institution. Accounts can be organized under "placeholder" accounts to add different levels of organization.

For example, if you would like to see a summary of your accounts by financial institution, you can create a placeholder account that represents a single financial institution and group your savings and checking accounts from that particular institution.

Maybe you want to see all savings accounts grouped together and checking accounts grouped together. It's just a mater of creating placeholder accounts for checking and savings and placing the respective accounts under them.

The account structure can be easily changed at any time with the exception of removing accounts after they have transaction in them. Transactions must be manually deleted from an account before you can remove it.

Creating Accounts

A new account is created by clicking on the New button in the account list view.

A new dialog box will be displayed that allows you to create a new account to suit your particular needs.

Account Information

Name

The name for the account. The name will be used to identify the account when creating transactions. Account names do not have to be unique, but may not be left blank.

Description

A description for the account. This field may be left blank if desired.

Account Number

The Account Number field is generally used for storing the account number provided by your financial institution. This field may be left blank if desired.

Account Code (General Ledger Code)

The Account Code field will default to a value of 0 and must be a numerical value. This value will also control the displayed order of accounts within the same branch. If the account code is left as a value of zero, sort order will be deferred to an alphanumeric sort against the account names. Best practice is to either use an assigned Account Code for all accounts within the same branch or leave the code as a value of 0 for all accounts. Otherwise, sort order may appear to be random.

Bank ID

This is the identification number of the financial institution and is generally used as an identifier when importing OFX files. This field may be left blank if desired.

Currency

The currency for the account. Account currencies cannot be changed if the account contains transactions.

Securities

This button will display a dialog that allows you to add and remove the available Securities for the account. This applies only to Investment accounts.

Account Type

Account Type determines what the account can be used for and the type of transactions that can be created. An Account's type may be changed after it is created to another type only if it is similar in function. For example, an Investment Account can be change to a Mutual Fund account and vice-versa, buy they may not be changed into Bank or Credit accounts.

Account Options

Locked

If selected, the account will be locked and further changes will be prevented. This is useful to lock accounts that have been closed while retaining your historical data.

Placeholder

If selected, child accounts may be placed under this account and the account will not accept transactions. This is useful for organizing accounts into a hierarchical structure.

Hide Account

If selected, the account is hidden from view if the hide account filter is enabled.

Exclude From Budgets

If selected, the account is hidden from view of the budgeting tool.

Parent Account

Clicking on this button will display a dialog that lets you select the account this account resides under. If you want the account to be placed at the top most level, then choose the Root account as the parent. Parent accounts may be changed as needed to suit your needs.

Notes

Room for extra information about the account if desired.

At any later time, the Modify button may be used to change an existing account. If the account contains transactions, certain options may not be changed.