Watch Your Wallet with GnuCash

If you’ve been looking for a Linux replacement for MS Money or Quicken, then the most frequent alternative you’ll run into is GnuCash. It’s free (as in speech and beer), and it runs on Linux and most Unix systems including Mac OS X.

Some people are daunted by GnuCash’s double accounting method, however. Not everyone takes college accounting courses, and not everyone is going to be using GnuCash in a business environment with a dedicated bookkeeper. Fortunately Breckin Loggins takes some of the pain out of double entry accounting in this O’Reilly Linux DevCenter article.

Breckin takes us through a transaction on each side of the double entry accounting method, and tells us exactly what’s happening in GnuCash. It’s all in plain language, making it easy to understand and follow.

I’ve never been one to track my finances on a computer (maybe someone can give me a good reason to start in another column sometime), but after reading this column, I won’t hesitate to give GnuCash a shot.