tracking "debt" to charity, with cost accounting

[Tim Nowaczyk]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2001 at 03:53:16PM -0000, Seth Gordon wrote:
>My wife and I want to make sure that 10% of our (income minus
>student-loan payments) goes to charity.
>
>The most logical way to do this is by creating a "charity payable"
>account; I could transfer 10% of every paycheck from my checking
>account to C/P, split the source of every student-loan payment 90:10
>between checking and C/P, and make all charitable donations directly
>out of C/P.  However, if I do it that way, then GnuCash will not have
>an accurate running balance for the checking account, and checks
>written to charitable organizations will show up in C/P, but not in
>the checking account.
>
>What are better ways to handle this?
>
  I think when the budget feature is completed, this will be a lot easier.  You could probably set a constraint on an account to have its balance be equal to (.1 * (Income - Liability:Student_Loan)).  Then look at a budget report to see how much is owed.  With this, all your transfers will be checks from checking into Expense:Charity.
  Disclaimer: I am not working on, nor do I know anything about the current budgeting code in GnuCash.  This just seems like the way it should work.  (or at least a feature of budgeting).
  I have been simply looking at my current balance in Expense:Church and making sure that it is close to .1*(Income:Employers-Expense:Tax).

  Tim Nowaczyk

  <>< Truth

  P.S. I like your sig :)