Need help with multi account split

[Josh Sled]

On Mon, 2004-05-10 at 01:33, Volker Englisch wrote:

> I just started using GC last month and I'm trying to set up a multi 
> account split.  I know I've seen an answer to this within the last 6 
> months but I've searched the archives and couldn't find it anymore.
> 
> My question is this:
> I'm paying the full cable bill from my checking account but I'm actually 
> splitting the bill with my mother-in-law and I don't know how to track 
> her portion of the bill in GC.
> Currently I have the entry in my Checking register like this:
> 
> Cable - Comcast     Asset:Current Asset:Checking             100
> Cable, my part      Expense:Cable                     60
> Cable, MIL part     Income:Cable                      40
> 
> This creates a negative income entry in the Income account which I don't 
> know if this will create problems later on.
> 
> Would this be OK as a setup?

I've done this in the past with [Asset:Money Owed To Me:<Roommate>]
accounts.  I don't know if this is proper Accounting, but I considered
the funds they owed to me to be a type of asset ... like a Certificate
of Deposit -- might not be immediately or directly available to me, but
it's my money. :)

In any case, then incoming cash would be [Income:Misc] or
[Income:<Person>], balancing against the [Asset:Money Owed to
Me:<Person>] account for the person.

This makes it easy to do a periodic [e.g., monthly] Transaction report
against that account for billing.  You may not want to present your
mother-in-law with a monthly bill :) , but I found it useful for
underclassmen I was sub-leasing my apartment out to.

> thanks for a great tool.  I've used MS Money for the last 4 years and I 
> was fairly happy with it but it was just getting too slow for me to 
> continue with it. Entering a transaction could take up to 60 sec for the 
> cursor to come back.  For someone paying the bills at night after the 

That's ... disturbing.
Glad to hear GnuCash is working better for you. :)

...jsled

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