Account Setup for a Liability

[Paul Dickson]

I'm setting up accounts for a club of which I'm the treasurer.  So this
query is more about accounting using GnuCash, rather than GnuCash.

Our club has numerous items that basically flow almost directly through
the treasury.  One item is magazine subscriptions.  I thought I'd use some
liability accounts for these subscriptions since they flow almost directly
through the treasury (note the "almost"), but there can be an interval
between subscription transmittals in order to accumulate enough
subscriptions to transmit.

Initially I thought of having accounts for these items under both Income
and Expense.  But this has led to a lot of duplication of accounts (with
no real comparison between the Income and Expense.  This is why I thought
of using a liability accounts.

So I have the accounts:

	Bank.Checking
	Liability.Subscriptions.Magazine1

When I get a payment from a member, I'd transfer the money between the two
accounts (possibly split between more accounts).  Later, when I wrote the
check for the subscriptions, I'd transfer funds in the other direction.

Now here's where the "almost" bites.  We round the subscription price.

So what kind of account gets the split difference?  I was thinking maybe
Income.Other Income (and Expense.Other Expenses), but this would not track
which subscriptions were making or losing us money.

It looks like I will still need an Income and Expense accounts for each
item (in addition to the Liability account).  So I'll have:

	Bank.Checking
	Expense.Subscriptions.Magazine1
	Income.Subscriptions.Magazine1
	Liability.Subscriptions.Magazine1

The last three accounts would be duplicated for each item bought through
the club.  This way we would know with a quick glance at a report which
items we where gaining or losing money on.

This won't lessen the number of account involved, but it would add more
functionality to the club's accounting.

Comments?

	-Paul