US Equivalent of Canadian GIFI?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Don Quixote de la Mancha wrote:

>I'm setting up the GnuCash accounts for my new business, and would
>like to know if there are any kind of standard account numbers for use
>when filing United States and California taxes.
>
>Canada Revenue Agency publishes the General Index of Financial
>Information (GIFI), which has the official numeric designations for
>Canadian corporations to use on their financial statements:
>
>http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tg/rc4088/README.html
>
>For example, GIFI item 1000 is Cash and deposits, 1002 is Deposits in
>Canadian banks in Canadian currency, and 1003 is Deposits in Canadian
>banks in foreign currency.
>
>If the US has any kind of equivalent to the GIFI codes, I think I
>should use them, but Google doesn't turn up anything.
>
>Thanks!
>
>Don Quixote
>  
>
I'm going to catch flak here -- but "Don", I'd say to discuss this with 
your accountant. The reason is .......

I am both the treasurer of a 501(c)3 and a very experienced (retired) 
senior systems analyst who designed/wrote a few hundred thousand lines 
of financial systems code in my day. Now one of the other board members 
is a accounting lawyer (and treasurer of a much larger 501(c)3) and he 
was taking the "rough" reports I produced, balance sheets, income 
statements, etc. and tuning out a finished product "financial report" in 
GAAP format the way normally done for non-profit reporting. So I asked 
him whether I should tackle creating custom reports from within GnuCash 
to do this for us and was told "Don't bother Mike. This is the everybody 
does it. The system produces the raw reports and the accountant imports 
that DATA into a report that they are creating using their favorite 
editor -- after all, there is a lot of "text" and there are the footnotes."

The point here is that attachment of codes and labels to be submitted to 
the government can come at a later stage, doesn't have to be part of the 
GnuCash account names. I believe that you will get the same advice form 
your accountant that I did.

Michael D Novack

-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.