gnucash in Australia

[Derrick Ashby]

Hello list,

I've been looking at gnucash for about a week, and in general I'm a 
fan.  This is the first accounting program I've found that seems to be 
useful for both personal and small business accounts.  (I've so far set 
up files for me, my wife, our business, our joint affairs and our super 
fund...) Not only that, but it gives me something useful to do with my 
linux box!  However, there are a couple of issues that bother me.

(1) Down here in Australia we start our financial year in July. Gnucash 
seems to assume a January - December year, and I can't find any way of 
changing this.

(2) GST (Goods and Services Tax - similar to VAT). I've read quite a few 
posts on this issue in the archives. When collecting GST from customers 
the advice seems to be to set up a tax table, and I tried doing that. It 
works fine if you use accrual accounting, but that involves paying tax 
to the government for invoices that haven't been paid yet, and who wants 
to do that? If one uses cash accounting, one is forced back to doing the 
thing manually, the way you need to do with purchasing.  I guess I can 
live with that, but it's a pain.

No doubt I'll find more things to gripe about in the next week or so ...

Derrick Ashby