Developing an activity as an independent worker : Use the personal File or create a separate one ?

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Thierry Lelièvre <thierrylelievre at free.fr> writes:

> As I am about get a new job where I would work as an independent worker,
> I will have to carefully follow all the expenses and revenues related to
> this activity ; so my question is : do I have to create new accounts
> (related to the new job) in my current personal file or is it better to
> create a completely separate file. In the latter case, is there a way to
> links the two files ?
>
> Any advice or return of experience would be greatly welcome !!!
>
> Thierry

The question I would ask myself: are these two entities (you as your
family and you as the employee) taxed differently?  If the answer is
yes, then I would use two separate data files.  If the answer is no,
then I would just add extra accounts for my personal data file.

In the former case the only way to "link" the files is to enter double
transactions -- you manually enter a transaction in the business data
to transfer money to/from your personal accounts, and then you enter a
transaction in your personal accounts to reflect that same transfer.
Gnucash will not do this automatically for you.

Hope this helps.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available