Some newbie questions

[Derek Atkins]

"Gerald Lopez" <peninjau at gmail.com> writes:

> I have gnucash 1.8.12 running on ubuntu 6.06. I set up a business account
> using the wizard, and would be grateful for ideas on the following:
>
>
>    1. I have to account for tax (GST in New Zealand) on virtually all
>    transactions. This works fine with Invoices and Bills from the
>    Business>Customers> menu; but when I do simple transactions using my current
>    (or checking) account, there doesn't appear to be any provision for GST, and
>    transactions in that account don't update the GST tax account like Invoices
>    and Bills do. Do I need to create Vendors and Customers for all my
>    transactions in order to reflect GST apportionment?

No, you can manually add the GST Split.  But if you want GnuCash to do
all the thinking for you then yes.  Note that the expression parser
does basic math, so you could do something like "102.32 * .08" in the
debit/credit cell to compute the tax.  But unfortunately it's not
automated.

>    2. Is GST and Income Tax an expense, as assumed by gnucash wizard - or
>    is it a drawing, as assumed by a local proprietory software (Cashbook
>    Complete)? If I continue with it being an expense, it looks like I will need
>    to deduct the taxes from the totals when I create reports.

It depends on whether it's tax you've actually paid or if it's
a witholding.  It could be a Liability.

>    3. How do I changed my Invoice heading to the legally required "Tax
>    Invoice", and how do I change "Tax" to "GST" in the table?

Edit invoice.scm.  That string isn't designed to be user-changable.
(For the record, I think that requirement is absolutely insane,
but then again there are many many stupid laws on the books in many
places around the world).

> Thanks very much.
>
> Cheers,
> Gerald.

-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