Starting with GnuCash. How to eliminate automatic entries ending up in the “unbalanced” account?

Question

I just started using GnuCash and there is something I do not quite get how to get rid of (and whether I should try to get rid of).

When I start importing transactions, I have expenses, income, etc. As this this as "double method" system, for everything I put in as an expense, the money should come from somewhere. The thing is, GnuCash opens a new account, "unbalanced" or something like that (I don't remember, I'm at work) where doing Expense - Unbalanced equals to zero.

Is it possible to get the "unbalanced" account to zero and eliminate it? It annoys me and in fact, I do not know if having it with some money is good or not for the rest of the system.

Thanks!

Answer 1

That's Imbalance-USD (or whatever your default currency is). This is the default "uncategorized" account.

My question is, is it possible to get the "unbalanced" account to zero and eliminate it?

Yes, it's possible to get this down to zero, and in fact desirable. Any transactions in there should be reviewed and fixed. You can delete it once you've emptied it, but it will be recreated the next time an unbalanced transaction is entered. Ideally, I figure it should autohide unless there's something in it, but it's a minor annoyance.

Presumably you've imported a lot of data into what's known as a transaction account like checking, and it's all going to Imbalance, because it's double entry and it has to go somewhere. Open up the checking account and you'll see they're all going to Imbalance. You'll need to start creating expense, liability and income accounts to direct these into.

Once you've got your history all classified, data entry will be easier. Autocomplete will suggest transactions, and online transaction pull will try to guess which account a given transaction should match with based on that data.