Account Breakdown

Pelton, Brian bpelton at jgboswell.com
Wed Jun 25 11:54:25 EDT 2008


I switched from Money a few years back, so welcome aboard.  I found that
for me, having a deeper account structure made up for the loss of
categories.

The difference between the two options seems to be preference.  (If
we're only talking about personal money -- if there was a business
involved, maybe there would be other things to consider.)


I would use the option that would make sense at a glance.  Let me try to
explain.  If you are just looking at your coa, what numbers would be
more meaningful to you?  Would you rather know how much you've spent of
food ... all food ... including vacations.  Or would it be more
meaningful to know how much you've spent on food for day-to-day expenses
and to know how much you've spent on a particular vacation ... for all
expenses.

Depending on which option you go with, you'll only get one of those from
the coa.  But, I think with reporting you can have both options.  So, it
would seem that you should use the option that would be meaningful when
you're looking at the coa.


I think you can get both options, so let me explain:

If you coa looks like this:

Expenses:Auto:MyCar:Fuel
Expenses:Auto:MyCar:Repair
Expenses:Auto:MyCar:Maintenance
Expenses:Auto:MyMiniVan:Fuel
Expenses:Auto:MyMiniVan:Repair
Expenses:Auto:MyMiniVan:Maintenance

At a glance, you'll be able to see total expenses by vehicle.  But, if
you want to know how much you've spent on fuel, you can sum the fuel
accounts.

  Expenses:Auto:MyCar:Fuel
+ Expenses:Auto:MyMiniVan:Fuel



Using the other option:

Expenses:Auto:Fuel:MyCar
Expenses:Auto:Fuel:MyMiniVan
Expenses:Auto:Repair:MyCar
Expenses:Auto:Repair:MyMiniVan
Expenses:Auto:Maintenance:MyCar
Expenses:Auto:Maintenance:MyMiniVan

At a glance, you'll be able to see total fuel expenses.  But if you want
to know how much you've spent on a particular vehicle, you can sum those
vehicle accounts:

  Expenses:Auto:Fuel:MyCar
+ Expenses:Auto:Maintenance:MyCar
+ Expenses:Auto:Repair:MyCar




I think you can report the numbers either way.  In my coa, I actually
have a mixture of option 1 and option 2.  For my auto expenses, I use
option 2.  For income, also option 2.  But for some expenses, I use
option 1:

Expenses:Clothing:Me
Expenses:Clothing:Spouse
Expenses:Spending:Me
Expenses:Spending:Spouse

The other option would be:

Expenses:Me:Clothing
Expenses:Me:Spending

But, I guess I'm not as interested in knowing how much "I" cost, and I'd
rather see how much my family has spent on clothing or spending money.

Hopefully this makes sense and is in some way helpful...

Brian




-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org
[mailto:gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Kevin Johnson
Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2008 5:31 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Account Breakdown

New user, switching from MS Money, and I am looking for suggestions on
how
to set up accounts to reflect the information which I use to capture by
using the sub-categories. I included examples below and options on how I
think accounts could be set up to capture this information. I am looking
for
pro/cons of my samples as well as possible different suggestions from
experienced users. I have searched the archives covering the past few
years
and did not find anything which I felt specifically answered all my
questions.

 

Tracking expenses on individual trips, but still account for a breakdown
of
those expenses, such as dining out and sporting activities which I also
have
expenses which would not be associated with an individual trip:

 

Option 1:

 

Expenses:Food:Dining Out

:Vacation 1

:Vacation 2

Expenses:Sports:Skiing

:Vacation 1

 

Option 2:

 

Expenses:Food:Dining Out

:Sports:Skiing

Expenses:Vacation 1:Food:Dining Out

:Sports:Skiing

Expenses:Vacation 2:Food:Dining Out

 

Option 2 has the advantage of grouping all the expenses to a vacation
together for an easy overall look at what was spent on each vacation.
Option
1 groups costs by activities/category across all expenses

 

Another expense area is assigning costs for automobiles to the actual
vehicle incurring the cost while still being able to see the overall
automobile cost

 

Option 1:

Expenses:Automobile: Maintenance:Car 1

            :Car 2

Expenses:Automobile:Petrol:Car 1

            :Car 2

Expenses:Autormobile:Insurance:Car 1

            :Car 2

 

Option 2:

Expenses:Automobile:Car 1

            :Maintenance

            :Petrol

            :Insurance

Expenses:Automobile:Car 2

            :Maintenance

            :Petrol

            :Insurance

 

Another example would be salary income. (Although since typically this
should only be a single employer source at a time perhaps just noting
the
employer in the memo section would contain enough information):

 

Option 1:

Income:Wages:Employer 1

            :Employer 2

            :Employer 3

Income:Bonus:Employer 1

:Employer 3

 

Option 2:

Income:Employer 1:Wages

            :Bonus

Income:Employer 2:Wages

Income:Employer 3:Wages

            :Bonus

 

As I can tell in these samples both options are reasonable ways to set
up
the account structure. I would really like to hear from the community
how
people set their accounts up and what they see as the pros/cons and
issues
when using the data with each of the setups. So far I really like the
functionality of gnuCash and have finally finished cleaning up the data
from
the import process. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and work on
this application.

 

Cheers-

 

KJ

 

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