Cash Handling?

[Tommy Trussell]

butting in on this thread ...

On 1/16/07, Andrew Greig <algreig at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-01-16 at 11:51 -0800, Paul Schwartz wrote:
> > I understand setting it up as an asset...I just tend to not track my
> > cash that well. In other words, once it's cash, it's already spent on
> > my books. It's just that occasionally I will get a receipt and want to
> > track it more specifically.

> Well, the important thing here is to be business-like with your
> transactions - even in a non-business environment.  ALWAYS get a receipt
> for cash transactions, or write yourself a note. (As much as I try to be
> paperless, cash transactions are the thorn in my side).  If you want to
> know where, and how fast, your money goes - get a receipt. Then you can
> add up all your fuel receipts, for example, and just make a monthly
> entry instead of,say, fifteen entries.

I'm about to carry my existing cash process over from Quicken, where I
enter all the cash transactions for which I thought to keep a receipt,
and then occasionally reconcile my cash account to match my wallet. I
use a "Miscellaneous" transaction as the expense to balance the
unknown amounts. Since I rarely think to do it and several month's
total can present a painful shock ("Where did all that cash GO!?"), I
reconcile each month's cash receipts at a time, entering a
"Miscellaneous" balancing transaction for each month until I get to
the current date.

Why do it? Balancing your cash account makes your report totals add up
properly. AND it helps remind you to track those cash receipts more
closely.

I presume the process works similarly in gnucash... please let me know
if I'm going astray here.