Need some help with Split Transactions

[Robert Heller]

At Sun, 8 Apr 2007 17:15:11 -0700 (PDT) K-B <kbalona at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Hello all, I'm having a little trouble figuring out the correct way to enter
> my transactions, I'm pretty sure it's possible to do it with Split
> Transactions but I don't understand the split transaction well enough.
> 
> Here's an example of what I need:
> I sold XXXX item on ebay for $20.00. The person pays me a total of $32.00,
> with the grand total broken down like this:
> 
> Item cost:  20.00
> Shipping cost: 10.00
> Handling Charged: 2.00
> Total: 32.00
> 
> Now the way I thought I could record a transaction like that in GnuCash is
> using a Split Transaction, but it doesn't turn out right. My idea was like
> this:
> 
> --- In an account called "Income:Ebay Income":
> - Make a new transaction with $32.00 in the Income field
> - Split off $10.00 into an account called "Expenses:Shipping"
> - Split off $2.00 into an account called "Income:Handling"
> - What's left (20.00) should stay in this account
> 
> But that method doesn't work! It always comes up with an Imbalance. What I
> had wanted to do is enter the total amount paid by the customer, then put
> the Shipping into it's correct account, then the Handling into it's correct
> account. After I take off those two, what's left would be what the cost of
> the item was, before shipping & handling. And that would stay in the account
> where the transaction is based (i.e. Income:Ebay Income)
> 
> Any ideas on how to achieve this or what I'm doing wrong?

Somewhere you need an account where the money 'originates' (PayPal
account?), then:

$32.00 comes FROM the PayPal account (Assets:PayPal ?) (this records the
							buyer's transaction)
$10.00 goes TO Expenses:Shipping	(These record where the buyer's    )
$2.00  goes TO Income:Handling		(money ended up in your accounting )
$20.00 goes TO Income:Ebay Income	(i.e. as various expenses and so on)

That is, you have 4 items in the split, one for each of the items above.

Money does not 'stay' anywhere (nor it does not 'magicly' appear out of
nowhere).  It always moves from some account to some other account. 
Double Entry Bookkeeping 101.

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Linux Installation and Administration
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