problem of double-double accounting for expense account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

>I just want to make a point that it may be necessary to maintain two 
>sets of books even if there's nothing to hide from the tax man.  The 
>rules used in the taxman's set of books are prescribed by law.  The 
>rules used in your own set of books are determined by your own business 
>policies, your own understanding of what makes your business grow.  They 
>may have nothing to do with one another.
>
>  
>
And even if it's ALL for the tax person's eyes. It is quite normal for a 
business to have a number of books with subsidiary books only having 
certain totals periodically entered into the main books (general 
ledger). That might be serving two purposes ........

1) Keeping irrelevant details from the main books. An obvious example of 
that would be "petty cash". The tax man might want to know how much in 
total got spent for the category "office supplies" but not be in the 
least interested in how much was a box of pens.

2) Being able to easily produce reports for individual business 
activities. Here you would be wanting to treat the main business as one 
"owning" a number of smaller enterprises but still want to be able to 
see how each of these does on an individual oasis. Thus if your business 
is owning/operating rental properties, might want to be able to judge 
each on its own as profitable or not.

Back to the original question (from China) I'll begin as I always do by 
asking a question. How do you do this with old fashioned pen and ink on 
paper double entry bookkeeping? (then I'd be willing to try to describe 
how to use GnuCash instead of the pen and ink on paper). If the answer 
is "I don't know" then not yet ready to worry about how to do it with 
GnuCash. GnuCash is automating the bookkeeping, not making it up.

Michael