Class accounting?

[Daniel]

That seems like a very complicated way to do it. First, realize that 
accounts and categories are the same thing. I suggest you create an 
account for each project and an account called Food. I have an account 
called Groceries.

I see no real benefit in having an account for each store. But if you 
really want to do that, you can create sub account, like this:

Suppose you buy from the stores "Home Depot" and "Toys R Us". If you 
absolutely want to keep track of expenses per-store I would do something 
like this:

Expenses:Projects:Model Train:Home Depot
Expenses:Projects:Model Train:Toys R US
Expenses:Projects:Tree House:Home Depot
Expenses:Projects:Tree House:Toys R US


Cheers,
Daniel.


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