GST total paid and GST total invoiced that has to be paid back

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting Bob Page <bpage104 at gmail.com>:

> Hello,
>
> I am a newbie and just trying to convert to Gnucash all my business
> transactions. I am also completely new to any accounting program as I have
> always let my Accountant look after that. Now I would like to do the
> bookeeping in house and submit reports to my accountant.
>
> Can anyone help me with the following:
>
> 1) I need to know the total amount of 7% GST (Canada) that I have invoiced to
> Customers as we have to collect these taxes and submit them to the
> government.

Set up a tax table for "GST Collected", and when you invoice, apply that
GST to each lineitem in the invoice.  This tax table should go into some
holding account (you can decide whether you want it to be a negative Asset
or a Liability depending on whether you think you collect or pay more GST).
This would be your GST Collected account.

> 2) I also need to know the total amount of 7% GST I have paid while 
> purchasing
> goods and services in all my expense accounts.

Same as #1 except a "GST Paid" tax table..   Or for hand-entered expense
transactions you need to manually split out the GST amount into the
GST Paid account.

> 3) I then need to deduct the GST that I have paid in all my expense accounts
> from the total that I have invoiced my customers. This will give me the
> figure that I have to submit to the Tax department on a quarterly basis.

Put the GST Paid and GST Collected into the same account hierarchy:

   ...:GST:GST Paid
   ...:GST:GST Collected

Then you can look at the balance of the ...:GST account to see whether you
owe are are owed GST.

> Can anyone visualize how this scenario above can be implemented in Gnucash in
> any way, in full or in part?
> Again, I am not too bright when it comes to accounting, as such a simple to
> understand explanation would be appreciated.

You might want to hire an accountant to help you get set up.

> Thanks in advance.

-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