Class accounting?

[Robert Heller]

At Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:41:35 -0700 Jeff Wiegley <jeffw at cyte.com> wrote:

> 
> I have bank accounts and I buy lots of stuff for various
> personal projects.
> 
> What I've been wanting to do for a while is to account
> for what get's spent on each individual project better.
> 
> In quicken I might do this with categories but that doesn't
> seem to be a very sophisticated method of doing it. And
> besides, Gnucash doesn't have categories.

It has *accounts*...

> 
> I can make accounts for the various vendors that I buy from
> and for my credit/checking accounts that I pay for this with
> and I know how to basic double-entry so that a purchase made
> appears in the bank/credit account and also in the vendor
> account.

No, you create accounts for each *project*.  You can create
sub-accounts for vendor.

> 
> The problem is I want it tied to a project "account" as well.
> I guess I could insert a second, equal transaction. one
> between the bank account and the project and a second between
> the project and the vendor. But this seems really cumbersome
> and now your gnucash bank account doesn't look anything
> remotely like your bank statement.
> 
> How does one handle this?
> If I think about like food...
> 
> I want to track project "food". I make vendor accounts for
> all my grocery stores and I organize them under a tree
> account called food. great now may bank statement looks
> like my gnucash accounts. If the bank statement says I made
> a purchase at Ralph's (a California grocery store) then
> the gnucash account shows a credit in the checking account
> and a debit in the Ralph's account. and I can say how much
> did I spend on food, since Ralph's is categorized under food?

You create an Expense account "Food" (probably under "Expenses").  Under
Food, you create an account for Ralph's (although why you need that
level of detail is uncertain).

> 
> The problem is that this doesn't extend to projects.
> 
> Let's say I have two projects, "Doomsday weapon" and
> "gardening robot". Both projects are independent from
> one another, both are funded by the same set of asset accounts
> and both require electrical and mechanical components to
> complete.
> 
> I buy lot of stuff from a company called McMaster-Carr
> (they sell just about every basic industrial electrical or
> mechanical component under the sun in 1400 page catalog.)
> 
> But I can't put the McMaster account under "doomsday weapon"
> because then all purchases for the gardening project also
> get accounted for under the doomsday project. I can't put
> McMaster under the gardening project for the symmetric
> argument.

You have two project accounts, "Doomsday weapon" and "gardening robot". 
When you make purchase from McMaster-Carr, you create a 'split' between
three accounts: the asset account (eg your checking account) and two
expense accounts, one under "Doomsday weapon" and one under "gardening
robot". 

> 
> So it doesn't fit the food model. (Even the Food model
> doesn't work because I might want to account for food I
> bought for myself versus food I bought for guests as gifts
> under projects and such. I.E. not everything I buy at
> Ralph's is consumed ultimately paid for by me but rather my
> roommate.)

This is again done with a split.

> 
> How does one account for project expenditures under GnuCash?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Jeff
> 

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