Car loan payments and budgets

[David Carlson]

On 4/26/2012 6:38 PM, skerit wrote:
> I just bought a new car. If I do everything by the gnucash-book I have to
> create an account for the loan in the "liabilities" section.
>
> But I don't see how I can make that work with my budget.
>
> Because, no matter how you look at it, in the end those loan payments are an
> expense. And if I just transfer the money from my account to the loan
> account it will never show up in my budget report
>
> Or am I missing something here?
>
> --
> View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Car-loan-payments-and-budgets-tp4591360p4591360.html
> Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>

There is more than one way to skin this cat.  If you follow the example
in chapter 7 of the user guide you will set up several accounts:


Basic Loan Account Structure

-Asset
    -Current Assets
        -Savings Account
    -Fixed Assets
        -Asset Purchased
-Liability
   -Loans
       -Mortgage Loan
-Expenses
   -Interest
       -Mortgage Interest
   -Mortgage Adm Fees
 
This allows you to track the value of the car in an asset account, make
payments from your bank account (Savings in this example), track your
loan balance in a liability account, track your interest expense in an
expense account (this example must have been for a mortgage loan), and
if there are fees or late charges you can put them in another expense
account.

Some people find that this is too much information.  If that is how you
feel, you may just create an expense account, call it "car loan" and
simply show a payment to that account.  It's a matter of what works for you.

David C
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 0xDC7C8BF3.asc
Type: application/pgp-keys
Size: 1729 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/attachments/20120426/cdb288d2/attachment-0001.bin>