Huh? Starting out with gnucash (new accounts, etc)

[Robert Graham Merkel]

On Tue, 19 Jun 2001 09:22:43 Robin Coon wrote:
> Eric Schwartz wrote:
> 
> > >The current thing that is blocking me is setting up a brokerage
> > >account.
> > >
> > >Create all the relevant commodities first (check)
> > >Create "accounts" for each commodity in the brokerage account (check)
> > >Create an account for cash on hand in the brokerage account (check)
> > >
> > >but how to I assign the initial values? I have 60 shares of this
> > >stock, and 32 of that one, and I can't figure out how to put this
> > >information all in. I thought about putting "buy"
> > >transactions in
> > >place for each stock, using the correct date (that would be most
> > >useful anyway), but the money has to come from somewhere... THis is
> > >getting really confusing.
> >
> > I assume you bought these before the period you started tracking from?
> > In that case, I'm in the same situation.  What I did was to enter buy
> > transactions at the relevant dates and prices, and transferred the
> > money from the Equity:Opening Balances account.  Since I wasn't using
> > gnucash back when I bought most of the stock, I figure that's more or
> > less what it's for.
> >
> > Mind you, I know jack about accounting, and even less about gnucash,
> > so I welcome rebuttal from someone who actually knows what they're
> > talking about.
> >
> > -=Eric
> 
> Please forgive me if I sound clueless about GNUCash, I am very new to it
> and just started subscribing to the mail list.  I do hope that with my
> accounting background (dangerously close to completing licensing for my
> CPA designation and I work at a large accounting firm) I can make some
> contribution.
> 
> >From an accounting perspective, the transactions that are most relevant
> at
> this time are those that occur during the current tax year (Jan 1, 2001 -
> Dec 31, 2001).  When you initially set up your brokerage accounts, the
> offset to the account should be Equity: Opening Balance.  So your "cash"
> for those initial buy transactions to get your securities into GNUCash
> would be Equity.

That sounds pretty correct to me.



-- 
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Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk@mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
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