Another beginners question

[Beth Leonard]

On Mon, Jan 22, 2007 at 04:22:08PM -0800, FamiliaFrazelle wrote:
> If i wish to have several Income accounts, one for my wife and one for
> myself, say, can i pay some of the expenses directly from say, her account?

I should first ask, do you and your wife have separate
bank accounts?  i.e.
Assets:Current Assets:My Savings      and
Assets:Current Assets:Her Savings?

or do you share the same bank account at the same bank i.e.
Assets:Current Assets:Our Savings

I'm going to assume for the rest of this answer that you
have a joint savings account, and both of your paychecks
are deposited into the same physical bank account at the
same bank.

When you have an expenses, think of how the real money is
moving -- Is your wife's employer writing one check to your
wife and one check to (for example) the bookstore when she
buys a book?  Probably not.  Probably your wife's employer
is writing one check to your wife that goes into your bank
account, and then your wife is writing a check to the bookstore
when she buys a book.  So the expense balances with a transaction
to the bank account, not with the income account.

[more below]
> When i try to do this, in the first place i input her income as Opening
> Balance.  If i place it in the Income col., and in Transfer, place:
> Equity:Opening Bal. for the amt. of her salary, the Balance col. appears
> in red and as a negative number -- very strange.

Typically Equity:Opening Balances is used for your asset and liability
accounts, not income and expense accounts.  So if you just started
using gnucash as of 1/1/07, then you can take your bank statement from
the end of December and enter one transaction for your starting balance.
Open up the Assets:Current Assets:Savings account, make a
transaction dated 1/1/07.  In the "transfer" column, pick
"Equity:Opening Balances"  Put the amount of money you had in the
bank on that day in the "Deposit" column.  The money will automatically
go to the right place in Equity:Opening Balances.

Ok, now you have some money in the bank from before.  If your
wife received a paycheck in November that was deposited in the bank,
you don't need to do anything to record it -- it's already accounted
for in your opening balances.  If she received another paycheck
on January 15th that was deposited in the bank, then you enter
her income just as you would yours -- but first you'll need
to make an account for her salary if you want to keep it
separate from yours.

On the main accounts page, highlight "Income" then click the
"New" button which is near the top of the screen in the row
of buttons.  Under "Account Name" enter "Wife's Salary".  You
should be able to leave the rest blank, then click "OK".  Now
under "income" there should be two entries, one for your
salary and one for your wife's.

Next open up your Assets:Current Assets:Savings account,
enter 1/15/07 as the date, tab over to description, type
"Wife's income", tab to "Transfer" Type "i:w" as the shortcut
to selecting "Income:Wife's Salary" then tab to deposit
and enter the amount.

Now your wife's income, which has affected the balance in
your bank account, has been recorded.

Now, for paying for an expense.

Assume your wife wrote a check from the bank account to
buy a book at the book store that you're calling Expenses:Books.

Go to the Assets:Current Assets:Savings Account tab,
enter the date and something like Bookstore-programming with Perl book
in the description.  For the transfer account, select
"Expenses:Books"  or type "e:b" then tab to withdrawal and enter
the amount of the book.

Now your bank account balance will go down, your expenses:books
account balance will go up, and your wife's salary will remain
exactly the same, because her job didn't pay for the book, she
did.

If you want to keep your expenses separate from hers, you
can make even more expense accounts.  Click on Expenses
in the main accounts tab, then "new" and call it "My Expenses"
then click on Expenses again, and "new" and call it "Her expenses"
Next click on "Her expenses" and click "new" and call it "books".

This will help you keep track of how much you're spending vs. how
much she is, because gnucash keeps the subtotals for you.

I expect a question about handling credit cards and how to
handle liabilities tomorrow night... :-)

> When i go to an Expense account and put the expense in the Expense col.,
> and in the Transfer col. i put Income:HerJob, and go back and look at
> the Income acct. (HerJob), it shows the expense as Income, in negative
> numbers, but it has decreased the Balance.  Is this correct?  (whoa, is
> it bec. it's "negative income"?, as in expense?)

As explained above, the expense gets balanced with the place where
the money came from -- if it was your bank account, use that, if
it was paid for on a credit card, use the liabilities:credit card
account to balance the expense.  (And later when you pay the
credit card bill, there will be a transaction that's a withdrawal
from your bank account and a credit on your credit card account.)

PS. Don't forget to group-reply.
--Beth 
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+                             Beth Leonard                          +
+       O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave              +
+       O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?        +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++