How to follow and report the same accounts with several accounting hierarchy ?

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Raphaël Maville <rafmav at wanadoo.fr> writes:

> I have an accounting hierarchy which I must obey to (the accounting
> association want me to use it): I use it.
>
> To pay the yearly tax on income, I have to follow another accounting
> hierarchy, the one of the report I have to send, this time wanted by the
> tax administration: I must obey too!
>
> Then I cannot leave the first for the second, and vice versa!

GnuCash does not have the concept of virtual accounts or different
"views".

> I have ways to manage this:
> - rewrite all the accounts and all the transactions in a second file: I
> think this is stupid!
> - create a report in the first accounting hierarchy, which returns the
> second one filled: perhaps the best solution ?
> - Another (elegant and good ?) solution, between the two other ones,
> that need an enhancement of gnucash: get possible to open two (or more)
> accounting hierarchy in the same gnucash session: all the top level
> accounts embedded in a mother and neutral top level (let's name it
> "top-top level account"); this could be useful to follow together
> "professional" and "personal" accounting (in the same window), with
> functions to transfer money between them ("external" transfers); it
> could be useful to, to follow the same accounts, the same money, the
> same transactions with a top-top level hierarchy following the "true"
> accounting, and a "virtual" one, which follow exactly the same accounts,
> the same money, and the same transactions: this would not need to build
> new reports... For now, this is impossible because we have to tell
> gnucash what is the account type for the top level account (and some
> sub-accounts do not fit in some top-level accounts). And I don't know if
> all this work is useful in my case: send a given report to a tax
> administration.

Yes, I agree that the best option would be to choose one structure
that makes the most sence for you, and then write a report to output
the data in the format required for your reporting needs.

Note that you CAN have two account hierarchy windows open, but they
cannot have different account structures (see above).

So, I think your second option is still the best.

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-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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