Combined Personal plus Businesses in same file

Dave dave at davestechshop.net
Wed Apr 9 11:59:43 EDT 2008


On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Dave <dave at davestechshop.net> writes:
>
> > I think multiple hierarchies (as was explained to me by Derek) sounds
> close to
> > this. However, since I haven't tried it before and since it is not
> recommended
> > generally, I want to understand it in more detail. I would appreciate it
> if
> > anyone will discuss with me some of the pros and cons of using multiple
> > hierarchies in one file, in the context I have outlined above. Thanks.
>
> The issue is that in GnuCash there is no account type that can hold
> every other account type.  Accounts are grouped into three categories:
> Equity, Asset/Liability, and Income/Expense.  So you would need three
> hierarchies per entity:
>
>  Eq-X
>  Eq-Y
>  Eq-Z
>  A/L-X
>  A/L-Y
>  A/L-Z
>  I/E-X
>  I/E-Y
>  I/E-Z
>
> You may even want to break it out more into separate Asset,
> Liability, Income, and Expense top-levels per tree, but that's
> up to you.
>
> When you run reports you'll have to choose which account hierachies
> you want to include.  This means none of the standard reports will
> work pre-configured; you'll have to get very familiar with the
> report options.


This was true in MS Money as well. I created and saved my own report
definitions and  then used them for many years without further issues.

BUT.. Once you set them up you should be able to
> save it as a custom report for later use.
>
> I wont get into the pros/cons here; you should talk to a real
> accountant on that.  But GnuCash wasn't really designed for this,
> but it can be made to work with a LOT of effort on your part.


Doing this was not a lot of effort under MS Money. But MS Money has the
"classifications" feature that made things work nicely.

Maybe I will run MoneyDance, GnuCash and MS Money side-by-side for a while
and see which is most satisfactory. (But that sounds like a lot of work.) On
the other hand, maybe I will just give up on trying to rid myself of Windows
and keep a Windows computer (or virtual machine) around for personal
finances...

Thanks for your reply Derek.


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