Australian BAS with GNUCash

[Robert Graham Merkel]

On Thu, 10 May 2001 17:50:56 Klaus Ridder wrote:
> > 29/4/2001 Woolworths                                              
> 50.25
> >                                     Assets:GST Credits   2.64
> >                                     Expenses:Foodstuffs  47.61
> >                                     Cash                          
> 50.25
> >
> 
> When you implement VAT / BAS in GnuCash, please don't do it the terrible
> way
> "Quicken 2000" does it by making split-transactions, as showed here. This
> makes everything very complex nad difficult to handle.
> Especially ifyou have transactions or an whole account that _may_ be
> accepted by the tax office, but you're not sure of it.
> I prefer the folliging way:
> 
> Date          Item                      Price        TaxKey
> 12.04.2001    Copy-Pater 500 sheets     $5.00        16%
> 12.04.2001    Snacks                    $100.0       -
> 12.04.2001    Newspaper                 $2.0         7%
> 12.04.2001    MobilePhone               $300.0       Default
> 
> Every Account now has a DEFAULT Percentace, that you can access by
> "Default".  This is default for every transaction.
> However, you are able to change the tax Key for every transaction.
> If you now see: "The financial office will not accept my computer
> newspapers", simply change the default value of that account.
> 
> The most important thing is, that you don't make split transactions, but
> just add a "tax key" to every transaction, that can easily be changed.
> 

The method you describe may be more convenient, but it doesn't meet
the Australian government requirements for GST record keeping, for one
thing. 
You can automate the process of recording GST/VAT to remove some of the
overhead of doing split transactions (for instance, attaching a tax
key to an account, which indicates that transactions to that account
should have a GST component, and calculates the numbers for the split
transaction), but split transactions *are* the correct
way of handling things.  Anything else is a hack.

-- 
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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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