Here's a quick time saver for entering transactions in GnuCash. It's the most efficient way I've found to get the exact account you want when you're entering a new transaction.

Suppose you're recording a transaction for a recent trip to the grocery store. Your account structure in GnuCash, for the relevant accounts, looks like this:

• Assets
  • Cash
    • Checking
• Expenses
  • Groceries

In GnuCash's default account heirarchy terminology, the ":" is used as the account delineation character. Therefore the two account entries for this transaction will be Assets:Cash:Checking and Expenses:Groceries.

When you click or tab to the accounts column you'll see a drop down dialog by default; but if you start typing the account name GnuCash will auto-complete the field for you. Typing "a" will bring up all the account choices beginning with the letter "A" (It's not case-sensitive). Assets will most likely be the top-level account "a" will get you.

Now type in ":" to accept Assets. Then type in "c". The Cash account is probably highlighted; but if it isn't just type in the next letter "a" to further disambiguate the account name. Another ":" completes the Cash account selection. A "c" then gets you closer to selecting the "Checking" account.

It types faster than I can explain it. The above instruction add up to typing in as little as "a:c:c" to completely define which account you want to select. Similarly, for the expense side of the transaction the account selection might look something like this: "ex:gr".

Entering GnuCash accounts this way, using the keyboard, is fast. Much faster than scrolling through a long list of potential accounts in a traditional drop down menu.