For many users, the easiest way to set up expense accounts is to check the "Common Accounts" when you create a new Account Hierarchy. This will establish many of the most common expense accounts that users need. See "New Account Hierarchy Setup" in Chapter 3 of the GnuCash Manual for more information.

If you have different expense accounting needs, you can refer to Section 2.9, “Transactions”, or Chapter 5.4 in the GnuCash Manual for instructions on how to create accounts.

Typical reasons for adding new or different expense accounts include: to track expenses for particular business purposes (e.g., specific types of supply expenses), to track expenses for particular tax purposes (e.g., tax expenses that must be reported to others), or simply to track expenses that are meaningful to you (e.g., payments made to a particular charity).