This study addresses students' approaches to learning the double entry of a financial transaction. A phenomenographic approach was used to collect and analyse qualitative empirical data. By focusing on an under-researched topic, the study contributes to accounting education literature and identifies a set of four hierarchical categories that qualitatively describe more complex ways of experiencing double entry bookkeeping. The findings reveal that some of these categories are more desirable than others and provide a lens through which accounting educators can view the quality of double entry learning. These findings support calls to reconceptualise the teaching of double entry bookkeeping and prompt calls for additional qualitative research into introductory accounting, and double entry bookkeeping in particular.