Need some help with Split Transactions

Derek Atkins warlord at MIT.EDU
Mon Apr 9 17:58:01 EDT 2007


Hi,

You should read the docs.  Split transactions are described in
great detail.

Your problem is that you're not thinking about this as Double Entry.
Try thinking about it in terms of "money entering" and "money leaving"
the transaction..   At the end of the day, the sum of "money entering"
and "money leaving" is zero, which means that transaction is balanced
(i.e., same amount in the debits and credits).

So, you have a total of $32..  That means you need $32 in credits and
$32 in debits.  So:

Checking        $32
Ex:Ship                 $10
In:Item                 $ 2
In:Handling             $20

BUT.. This isn't quite right, either.  The shipping is on the wrong
side.  So, more likely it's:

Checking       $32
In:Ship                $10
In:Item                $20
In:Handling            $ 2

(and then if you wanted to you could deal with Ex:Ship, Ex:COGS, etc)

-derek

Quoting K-B <kbalona at yahoo.com>:

>
> 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?
> --
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> http://www.nabble.com/Need-some-help-with-Split-Transactions-tf3545253.html#a9896928
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>
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-- 
       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



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