Account Grouping

[David Gilbert]

On Saturday 26 January 2002 15:05, Michael T. Garrison Stuber wrote:
> Currently in GNUCash you can only group like accounts together under an
> account of the same type.  Generally this makes sense, but
> (architecturally) does it have to work this way?  I'll give a scenario
> here:
>
> I travel for business for the company I work for.  As such I have travel
> related expenses and travel related income (reimbursement).  The expenses
> aren't truly mine, nor is the income truly income.  I would like to have
> top level account with income and expense both under it.  The advantage to
> me as a user is that I could quickly look at it and determine whether the
> company owes me money (expenses higher than income) or whether I have
> misreported (income greater than expense.
>
> In one sense here what I am looking for is the ability to maintain multiple
> sets of books in the same GNUCash file.  One "business" would be my
> personal finances, the other would be my work finances.  Yes, I could track
> these things with separate file, but I'd really like to be able to see this
> all in one place, and transfer money between the two sets of books, as they
> are often connected (for example, I "loan" money to my company when I pay
> my expenses out of personal funds and than pay myself back when I am
> reimbursed).   Thoughts?
>

Right at the end there I think you almost answer your first question.  Don't 
record the business-related expenses as an expense in your personal accounts. 
 Just set up an asset account "Loan to Business" and every time you pay a 
business expense from personal funds just do a transfer from your bank 
account to the "Loan to Business" account (credit your bank account, debit 
the "Loan to Business" account).  Then when you get re-imbursed, debit your 
bank account and credit the "Loan to Business" account.  That will avoid 
"polluting" your personal income and expenses with business related items, 
but the "Loan to Business" account will contain a complete record of where 
you stand in terms of what the company owes you.

Regards,

Dave Gilbert.