how to view total for expenses subaccount

[Nathan Watson-Haigh]

I think there is some confusion with the way you are using the expense
accounts and this is complicating/confusing what you are trying to achieve.

You should have a credit card account (e.g. Liabilities:Credit Cards:Credit
Card 1) and a series of expense accounts (e.g. Expenses:Groceries and
Expenses:Auto:Gas). Expense accounts shouldn't be used directly to record
how much you are spending in each of the categories, instead, you should use
the actual account you used for that expense (e.g. your credit card) by
making a payment from your credit card to the expense account. Thus when you
look at your credit card transactions, you'll see X amount spent on
Groceries and Y amount spent on Auto:Gas. When you make a Credit Card
Payment by creating a transaction for money moving from your bank account to
your credit card, the payment isn't assigned to pay off a particular expense
account (e.g. Auto:Gas) in preference of another, it is simply reducing your
liability - tracking your expenses, is done separately to the payment. 

For a step-by-step example, I have the following accounts:

Assets:Checking Accounts:Bank Account 1
Liabilities:Credit Cards:Credit Card 1
Expenses:Auto:Gas

Initially, all the balances are zero. I purchase $50 of gas using Credit
Card 1 so I go to Credit Card 1 and enter a transaction by transferring $50
to the Expenses:Auto:Gas. T this point the balance of Credit Card 1 is $50
and the Expenses:Auto:Gas shows I've spent $50 on Gas. When it comes to
paying the bill for Credit Card 1, I enter a transaction in Assets:Checking
Accounts:Bank Account 1 to transfer $50 to Credit Card 1. That's it. My
Credit Card 1 bill is paid and the account balance is now zero, the expense
account shows I've spent $50 on Gas, and my Bank Account is $50 overdrawn.

I hope this helps,
Nathan


-----Original Message-----
From: Girard Aquino [mailto:girardaquino at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, 29 October 2008 12:20 PM
To: stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: how to view total for expenses subaccount


Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> Girard Aquino wrote:
>
>> Hi. I need help trying to produce a report for our monthly expenses 
>> for one of the Expenses subaccounts. I don't have any problems with 
>> transactions I pay for using my debit/checking account because this 
>> is easily tracked by Reports>Income&Expense>Cash Flow. My problem is 
>> with transactions i pay for using my credit card. When iIdownload my 
>> CC transaction history they all go to liabilities>CC, and I transfer 
>> the CC transactions to their respective Expenses subaccount such as 
>> Groceries, Dining, Auto>Gas, etc....
> Correct --- you "book" the expense as the liability is assumed (date 
> of the credit card transaction)
>
>> Then when I pay for the CC bill for the month, I use my 
>> checking/debit which lowers my liabilities. But then, I lose track of 
>> how much of the liability in CC went to what Expenses subaccount.
>>
> Why? Can't see how you lose anything here. You are paying off part (or 
> all) of the liability (credit card debt). At this time there is no 
> connect to how/why the liability came into existence.
I see your point there. But I would like to keep track of how much we 
are spending on each of the Expenses subaccounts (i.e. Groceries) for 
the current month. So while I am able to transfer and therefore 
categorize the CC transactions into the different Expenses subaccounts, 
I am not able to track how much of the money from my checking which goes 
into paying the Liabilities>CC actually goes into what Expenses 
subaccount. This is because a CC bill of 600, simply shows as a single 
CC payment from checking into Liabilities>CC. But how much of that 600 
went into Groceries, Gas, etc... I cannot view (or cannot figure out 
how, until now) using the reports (Thank you Robert!!!)
>
>> Or one could say that I lose track of how much of the CC payment went 
>> to what Expenses subaccount. I was trying to view how much we were 
>> spending on groceries for the month, but realized the report I 
>> produced with Reports>Income&Expense>Cash Flow was inaccurate because 
>> of this. Any tips on how to go about this? Thank you.
>>  
>>
> Again, unsure of what you perceive as the problem. Money is considered 
> "fungible" (freely exchangeable). The amount of expense you have for 
> "groceries" for the month has nothing to do with whether you paid for 
> these groceries with cash out of your pocket, a check, by assuming 
> credit card debt, etc. If you actually are losing transactions, you 
> need to try to explain to us where that appears to be happening.
>
> Michael
>
>>
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>
>



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