Getting Started for 2010

[James Kerr]

On Tuesday 20 April 2010 Mike or Penny Novack wrote:

> CFreestone wrote:
> >Thank you for this  opportunity. We have just installed gnucash
> > and I am trying to learn how to navigate around.
> >
> >Our situation is that we have a revocable trust which owns all of
> > our assets, and rents out three units (two offices and an
> > apartment).
> >
> >We do our day to day business from our personal check book.
> 
> Stop right there.
> 
> We can advise you how to make USE of GnuCash instead of old
>  fashioned accounting pen and ink on paper. But we can't advise
>  about the accounting requirements themselves, especially when in
>  reference to a situation which is clearly special. And we probably
>  shouldn't be advising how to get around the problems introduced by
>  co-mingling of funds.
> 
> If you found yourself in need of a revocable trust holding your
>  assets I think you need professional accounting help to set up:
> a) the trust's books
> b) the business's books
> c) your personal books
> And to show you how transactions between these should be handled. 
>  Don't even think of trying to do this in one set of GnuCash books
>  (one installation of GnuCash can handle any number of books). And
>  you should really think long and hard whether not having a
>  separate checking account for the business is a good idea (you can
>  handle the then rare times where you used your personal account to
>  pay a business expense  as a liability of the business to you that
>  is later reimbursed).
> 

In addition to that excellent advice, I would add that you may have 
legal (and tax) problems by commingling trust and personal assets in  
a single bank account as you seem to be doing. If you haven't already 
done so, you should take legal advice about that.

Jim