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Doctorcam wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid20050131054545.GP24166@treehouse.ellisonet.ca"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">* Derrick Ashby (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:daeroncs@fastmail.fm">daeroncs@fastmail.fm</a>) wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Russell,
I agree that GST is a bit of a pain in gnucash, but it is do-able. You
have to create the split transaction yourself. This is easy if you
regularly deal with only a few vendors, since gnucash defaults to the
last transaction you did with the same description. You then only need
to balance each transaction where the amounts are different. I
personally use a little spreadsheet to calculate the GST / Ex GST split,
not having previously twigged to the fact that gnucash accepted formulas
in amount fields. If you desperately need to capture vendor information
other than via the description line, I guess you could create a
subaccount for each vendor, although that could become a pain if you
also have lots of expenses accounts.
>From a business point of view, if you are claiming GST back from the
government, don't listen to the people who tell you that it goes in a
Liability account. Claimable GST is an asset. Non-Claimable GST is an
expense. GST paid to you by a customer is a Liability, because it's not
your money - it's the government's.
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
Of course it's an Asset. However, you need to know how much you
actually owe. When you set it up as a contra Liability subaccount, at
the same level as the GST you charge, the parent account gives you the
net, without your having to calculate it. Any GST my business pays out is
claimable - that may not be the same in Australia.
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Sorry, I left that out. Until I thought about it some more this
afternoon GST Payable was an Expense account, which I set up as a
subaccount of Tax Expenses. At the end of the payment period
(quarterly, in our case), I intended to post the GST Claimable balance
and the GST Collected balance to GST Payable, which automatically gave
me the balance that I needed to pay the government. A little extra
work, I grant you. I have now realised that sending a cheque to the
government would in fact zero that expense account (duh!), which makes
no sense. Therefore the GST Payable account properly becomes a
Liability account. When you think about it, GST is not really an
expense, because it's money that wasn't yours in the first place.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid20050131054545.GP24166@treehouse.ellisonet.ca"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">Down here in Australia we are able to use cash accounting, so I in fact
have two GST Liability accounts - GST Collected and GST Receivable. GST
Receivable is the GST that I am required to collect once the invoice
gets paid (this is processed automatically by gnucash), and GST
Collected is the money that has actually been collected. This requires
me to remember to do a transfer from the one to the other when I process
a payment.</pre>
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Having modelled several different schemes in a dummy gnucash file, I
confess that your model works just as well as mine, but I think mine is
a more accurate picture of what goes on (okay, I prefer mine...). It
also has the advantage of zeroing all the GST liability accounts at the
end of each period, whereas with your method the balance in the
subaccounts will continually grow.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid20050131054545.GP24166@treehouse.ellisonet.ca"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">We cannot - once it's invoiced, it belongs to the government, though
they allow you to pay at specified intervals (quarterly, in my case).
Simpler, fortunately, but a drag if the customer doesn't pay up in
time.
Cheers
Cam
</pre>
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Derrick<br>
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