In a double entry accounting system like GnuCash, a transaction is an exchange between at least two accounts, and each transaction has at least two parts, or splits, called a from account and a to account. The from account transfers value to the to account. There are couple of ways to manually enter transactions, Simple and Split transactions.

In this tutorial we will enter a simple transaction, what makes it a simple transaction is that it will only involve two accounts in chart accounts. We will begin with entering the the equity opening balance account since that should be the first transaction you enter into the chart of accounting.