A few questions from a keen newbie

Terry Boon terry@counterfactual.org
Wed, 18 Oct 2000 20:07:14 +0100


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On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 10:56:33PM +1000, Chris Friedl wrote:

> I noticed in the examples from earlier builds that there are cases
> where a transaction is split. What is this and why, when and how do
> I do it? I see no split selection in any dialog.

It's for a transaction which affects more than two accounts.

Example 1:

My hypothetical payslip arrives.  It shows I have earned $100, and
that $20 income tax has been deducted at source.

I enter this into Gnucash as follows:

Debit: Checking account (bank)  $80
Debit: Income tax (expense)     $20
  Credit: Salary (income)            $100     

Example 2:

My equally hypothetical mobile phone bill arrives, showing a total of
$50.  However, $20 of these calls were for work purposes, for which I
will be reimbursed by my employer.

Debit: Mobile phone (expense)         $30
Debit: Reimbursable expenses (asset)  $20
  Credit: Checking account (bank)          $50

How to enter them:

These are entered in the register window.  Select the multi-line style
(menu structure Register > Style > Multi-line).  For each transaction
in the register window, each line represents one account affected by
it.  The top line refers to the account whose register window you are
looking at.  In the lines below that one, add the lines for the other
accounts affected, and the top line has the balancing total updated
automatically.

User interface niggle:

The layout of the columns doesn't show the transactions as laid out
above in traditional double-entry format.  For example, Example 1
above would be shown similar to the following in the Salary register

Description             | Account          | Debit | Credit
- -------------------------------------------------------------
Salary, September 2000  | Salary           |       |   100
                        | Income tax       |       |    20
                        | Checking account |       |    80
                        |                  |       |

I would ideally like to see these laid out so that the debits are on
the left and the credits on the right.

Description             | Account          | Debit | Credit
- -------------------------------------------------------------
Salary, September 2000  | Salary           |       |   100
                        | Income tax       |   20  | 
                        | Checking account |   80  | 
                        |                  |       |

Am I missing an option to do this somewhere?

[action functions; stock-price lookup and foreign exchange]

Sorry, I can't help on these.

Best wishes,
Terry

- -- 
Terry Boon, Hertfordshire, UK
terry@counterfactual.org 
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