gnucash evaluation

[Marcus Wolschon]

2008/10/17, Travis Hagglund <thagglund at korsa.ca>:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a small business which provides services.  I am looking at
> gnucash as a possible accounting software.  I work out of my home and
> would like to include a portion of house expenses such as utilities,
> insurance, etc.  I know you can set these expense accounts up easily,
> but can you apportion only part of the expenses to the business, or
> would you have to enter only the portion you want entered as a business
> expense?
>
> Another example would be vehicle expenses.  You do not know the
> percentage of personal to business use for the vehicle until the end of
> the year, so how would you enter and account for the appropriate vehicle
> expenses to apply to the business?
>
> Any advice on how others handle this is appreciated.

Hello Travis,

I am doing the same and have 2 trees of expenses-accounts.
In your case that would be:
  expenses(business)
  expenses(business):vehicles
  expenses(business):vehicles:car0
  expenses(business):vehicles:car0:fuel
and
  expenses(private):vehicles

and then you do splits like:
  assets:bank:bank0   -100eur
  expenses(business):vehicles:car0:fuel +80eur
  expenses(private):vehicles + 20eur

Or (like I do) do multiple simple transaction:
  assets:bank:bank0   -100eur
  expenses(business):vehicles:car0:fuel +100eur
and at the end of the month one transaction
  expenses(business):vehicles:car0:fuel +-20eur
  expenses(private):vehicles + 20eur
(this may be easier if you define the percentage of non-business-use of your car
 at the end of the month.)

Marcus