[OT] Re: Re[2]:Different debit/credit dates.

[Matthew Vanecek]

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You, sir, are a masochist!! ;)  I couldn't even *begin* to imagine going
to all that trouble.  Simple double-entry is complicated enough!!

On Mon, 2002-10-07 at 14:42, Rusty Carruth wrote:
> Dale Alspach <alspach@math.okstate.edu> wrote:
> > If the float time is critical you may want to institute some accounts
> > which act like accounts payable and accounts receivable.=20
> > ...
> > what your goal is. When you write a check do you want the
> > balnce in gnucash to show that money as removed from the bank account a=
t the
> > time the check is written or at the time the bank honors the check?
> > This is more or less the difference between accrual and cash accounting.
>=20
> Ah, that's sheds some (accounting) light on what I've been doing, which i=
s:
>=20
> We have 2 checking accounts - one is for 'short-cycle' items (short =3D=
=3D around
> a month or less), one is for 'long-cycle' items (or monthly things that v=
ary=20
> from month-to-month, like long distance phone calls, electric, etc).
>=20
> I have the long-cycle checking account broken into a bunch of subaccounts
> which represent the different items (electric, gas (not auto gas, that's a
> short-cycle item), Christmas gifts, etc.).
>=20
> The question I'm asking of gnucash for the long-cycle items is 'is there
> enough money in this account to buy item <x> for $<y>.', so I want to
> deduct the money from the category as soon as the check is written.
>=20
> So, when we pay for something with the credit card, 4 accounts get=20
> involved:
> 	the long-cycle item's subaccount
> 	the item's associated expense category
> 	the credit card account
> 	the 'pay to credit card' subaccount of the long-cycle checking account.
>=20
> Then, when it comes time to reconcile and pay the card off (yes, we pay
> it off every month) then I write the check and the 'pay to credit card'
> subaccount and the credit card account are involved.
>=20
> The main (maybe only) downside I've found to this approach is that
> I have a bunch of offsetting transactions in my credit card reconcilation
> window (that is, the 'pay to credit card' and the long-cycle item's=20
> subaccount).
>=20
> Oh - wait!  There is one SERIOUS downside to doing this, but its
> not directly related to the 'pay to credit card' subaccount - its
> caused by the fact that, when I want to know what the balance is
> in the long-cycle checking account there is no simple way to get
> it printed, and you don't EVEN want to try to see the balance=20
> when you print the register - the account balance on the register
> is ONLY for the subaccount, and you don't really HAVE one of those...
> (you only have the aggregation of all those subaccounts, and I've
> not seen a way to get that info printed)
>=20
> > ...
> > >Hi,
> >=20
> > >I just started using gnucash.  I'm also new to accounting.
> >=20
> > >When I move money between accounts (bank to bank, bank to credit card,
> > >Paypal to bank, etc.), the source account is normally debited a few
> > >days before the destination account is credited (and sometimes, the
> > >other way around.)  This seems to be a pretty common phenomenon.  How
> > >can I entered this correctly (and, hopefully, conveniently) in
> > >gnucash?
>=20
> As Dale indicated. if you don't really care about the float, you
> could simply not bother.  I suppose those living that close to
> the edge (or moving a large enough amount around) might either
> want to go to the hassle of 4-entry bookkeeping similar to what
> I do (rather than the standard double-entry gnucash does ;-),
> or perhaps write a script to parse the gnucash file and provide
> you with an indication of how much $ is floating at that point
> in time (and for what accounts).   That might be an interesting
> report....
>=20
> (In the above, when I say 'printed' I mean on paper, not displayed
> on the screen.  Most of the info IS available onscreen, but there
> are a few important numbers that you simply cannot ask gnucash
> to print - you have to resort to screen capture if its available
> onscreen, else you are stuck.)
>=20
> rc
>=20
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>=20
>=20
--=20
Matthew Vanecek
perl -e 'print
$i=3Dpack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
***************************************************************************=
*****
For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow
except me.
I'm always getting in the way of something...

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