[SLUG] finance under linux

[Alan L Tyree]

On Tue, 2003-09-02 at 20:16, doug foskey wrote:
> On Tuesday 02 September 2003 11:53 am, Adam Hewitt wrote:
> > Hi All,
> >
> > After cracking the shits that my mother-in-law is forever telling her
> > friends that I work with computers and ending up coming home every night
> > to fix someone elses computer problems, I have decided to get myself and
> > ABN and start charging for the privilege (and as I found out 4 weeks ago
> > that I am having my first baby the money will come in very handy too).
> >
> > Now I guess most of this will only come in useful when/if I get Debian
> > running fully under my ibook, but is anyone running their business
> > finances under linux? I am not registered for GST as this will only be a
> > part time thing, but is there any GST software under linux?
> >
> > I would be very interested in finding out how/if people are doing this,
> > to what extent it works for them, any problems or advise about using
> > this software under linux and what software they are using?
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Adam.
> 
> Use Gnucash! (Current version 1.8.5) (its great, mate) Come & join the 
> revolution. (It is not set up directly for GST, but could be. Until then, you 
> can transfer 1/11 of the account into a GST tracking account, so set up an 
> asset & liability pair of GST accounts that should cancel out every 
> accounting period.)
>   There are probably others that can explain better how to set it up, but 
> please copy to the gnucash list, as your explanation may go into 
> documentation to assist others. 

<SNIP>
I use GnuCash - not much of a business, really, just consulting and
royalties. The important thing is to get your account structure set up
properly. If you are currently using an accountant, talk to him/her and
try to set up your accounts as near as possible to the ones that they
use in the annual reports. It will save time/money.

For GST, as suggested above, I use an Asset account: Input Credit
Control Account (contains details of the amount of GST that the business
has paid) and a Liability account: GST Payable Control Account (contains
details of GST collected and therefore owed). The actual income and
expenditure accounts contain entries that are net of GST.

Again, though, I think it makes sense to talk to your accountant about
the structure of accounts. At the very least, look at the annual reports
and mimic the account structure there.

Hope this helps,
Alan

-- 
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Alan L Tyree
http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel: +61 2 4782 2670
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