GnuCash

So after trying to use Quicken in a Virtual Machine and having problems with it, I decided that I needed a new accounting program. I preferred one that was native to Linux as that is my Operating System of choice . I decided that I would try GnuCash (http://www.gnucash.org) which is also available for Mac OS X. Setting up my accounts in Gnucash took about 20 min or so, and was not hard to understand. The biggest change from quicken was that Gnucash uses accounts where quicken uses categories. So now instead of all my gas transactions being in a category of Auto:Gas, they are recorded to the Auto:Gas expense account.

These Expense accounts (There are income accounts that behave similarly) basically represent another entity's books so that I can place the other half of my double entry into their "books". While this is a little confusing at first, I figured out that if I thought of those accounts as the accounts receiveable for another person, that account was essentially a joint account used only to transfer money. That helped me get used to the change.

Right now the program looks promising. I plan on trying it for at least a couple months to see if it will work for me. The one thing that I can't budge on is that it must be able to accurately import all the .QIF files that I download from my institutions, as I don't normally type any of my data in, I download it from my banks, and double check the data as I'm importing them. Because I am the only one that uses my accounts, and I don't have that many transactions, as I tend to spend a lot of money in few transactions, I can usually remember everything I did in the last month by looking at where the money went and how much it was.

For me, keeping records of my finances is my one HUGE downfall. I hate it with a passion. I hate records, I hate to organize (although I do like an organized space, I just don't want to do it.) and I hate double checking everything just so that I can look back later and say "Wow! I filed that!" I'm hoping an easy to use program will help alleviate some of my pain.

Is there anybody else out there that uses GnuCash? any hints for someone just starting out with the program?