"I don't like keeping books…I just find it boring…But I'll tell you what! I always feel good after completing the book-keeping." – a successful small business owner in his blog.

On the other hand, there are others who look at accounting as a game. If something doesn't balance, they take it on as a fun challenge to track down the problem and find a solution. However, if you are like this small business owner, you may find bookkeeping a boring activity because it is very repetitive. Perhaps, you would rather be out cultivating customers and working on the deals that make your business grow and prosper. However, that is the very reason why we are going to spend some time equipping you with all the tools and tips necessary to get through this bookkeeping part quickly and effectively. With that taken care of, you can be free to devote more time to growing your business.

As a small business, on any given day, you may have several expenses which you might pay by cash, check, or credit card. Also, you might receive sales revenue by check or cash. You might also have other transactions such as repayment of loan, withdrawing cash from the bank, and so on. All of these transactions need to be entered in GnuCash so that you can run reports at the end of the week, month, and quarter. This will help you to see how your business is doing and navigate around potential cash flow hurdles towards your business goals successfully.

So, capturing these transactions quickly and effectively is the heart of establishing a good accounting and financial reporting system which is essential for a successful small business.

In this chapter, we shall cover:

We have done the ground work already by setting up the accounts necessary in the previous chapter. Now we are all set to get started entering transactions.