Fwd: Multi-company accounting

[Conor McGarry]

Hi Robert

Thanks for the reply.

I've played around with that idea before.  It creates a few issues.  An
example would be that if the parent account was an "asset" account, then
none of its sub accounts could be "equity" accounts - and visa versa.  I
could work around this by setting the shareholder funds or earnings accounts
as liabilities, therefore it wouldn't be correct when printing off a P&L or
Balance Sheet.

Also, income/expense accounts cannot be parents/subs of asset or equity
accounts.

These companies are all subsidiaries of an ulitmate parent company.  They
are all within in the same "business" i.e. share same office, have the same
directors, same employees etc.  Most of these companies are just shelf
companies and are used as investment vehicles.




On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:

> At Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:47:44 +0000 Conor McGarry <conormcgarry at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > Hi
> >
> > I have a large number of companies within the same organisation.
>  Currently,
> > I have a GnuCash file for each company.
> >
> > I would like to allow each of the companies' files to link together so
> that
> > entering an intercompany transaction doesn't require 2 seperate entries.
> >
> > For example, company A pays EUR1 to company B, to do this I would
> normally do
> > the following:
> >
> > 1. Open company A's GnuCash file.  Post the following - *credit cash a/c
> EUR1,
> > debit intercompany (company B) a/c EUR1*.
> > 2. Open company B's GnuCash file.  Post the following - *debit cash
> > a/c EUR1, credit
> > intercompany (company A) a/c EUR1*.
> >
> > During the year, to ensure that the intercompany accounts balance, I need
> to
> > do a manual reconciliation.  The current method I am using allows for
> alot
> > of human errors.  For instance, I could post the transaction to company
> A,
> > then forget to post it to company B.
> >
> > Is it possible, when entering a transaction, that you can enter the
> > corresponding debit/credit entries in the other company?
> >
> > There are 75 companies in my organisation, intercompany reconciliations
> > takes up alot of my time.
> >
> > If any developers would like to discuss this with me to figure out a
> > solution, I would gladly appreciate it.  Also, I would be willing to pay
> > money to have this done.
>
> I am neither an accountant nor one of the GnuCash developers, but an
> idea comes to mind:
>
> Create 75 'super accounts', one for each company.  Under these 'super
> accounts', you create a regular account tree, one for each company.
>
> The only snafus I can think of is that the invoice numbering along with
> the customer database (such as it is) would be merged together for all
> 75 companies.  Question: how independent are these companies?  Are they
> completely separate businesses or are they tied together on some level?
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Conor McGarry
> > Dublin
> > Ireland
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>
> --
> Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
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>