[newbie alert] Mortgage/Auto Loan/Stocks How-to ...

[Jim Bowen]

Mehul -


How you attack the problems you pose depends on your individual needs,
but some general advice (based on what I have done):



>     1.  How do I go about adding mortgage into GnuCash ?   I have had
>         the mortgage for several years now.  Do I need to start to set
>         it up so that it starts from the begining, or can I just pick
>         up from here and move forward ?  What kind of account would I
>         set up for this ?  With double-entry bookkeeping, would I need
>         to create two accounts ? 

- Create a liability account for the mortgage
- Create an asset account for the house.
- Create an expense account for the mortgage interest.
- Create an equity account for carryover/starting balances

- Enter starting balances based on the original transaction.
  e.g. you purchased a house for $100k 

   Liability:Mortgage               $100,000cr
   Asset:House          $100,000db
  
- Enter a transaction to account for the payments to date
  e.g. you have paid $14,000 so far

   Liability:Mortgage   $14,000db
   Equity:Carryover Balances         $14,000cr

- Now for each months payment you would do a transaction like:
  e.g. for a $2100 payment:

   Liability:Mortgage   $1500db
   Expense:Interest      $600db
   Bank:Checking                   $2100cr

 
>     2.  The same situation as above for the car loan.

same as above w/ diff asset, liability and (optional) interest accts

> 
>     3.  I have stocks in a Roth IRA, along with mutual funds.  How do
>         I go about adding these into GnuCash ?  Should I just start
>         with what the quantity of stocks I have as off today, along
>         with the average cost of each share ?  Or should I put in
>         every purchase and sale ?  How do I account for stock splits
>         that have occured ? 
> 

I'm not ready to tackle this one as I am having my own questions on
stocks and valuations (esp in regards to balance sheet report --
http://www.gnumatic.com/pipermail/gnucash-user/2002-March/003467.html).
I'll pass this one on to the more knowledgeable members of the list.


> 
>     For the time being I believe the above questions will suffice.  Is
>     there a FAQ for this, that I might have missed out on ?  I did not
>     see one at the web site.
> 
> 
> thanks,
> 
>     mehul
> 
> -- 
> Mehul N. Sanghvi                  email: mehul@sanghvi.org
> Superior software is always free!   URL: http://sanghvi.org/~mehul
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