Tracking Money in Savings Account

Wed Dec 15 14:12:46 EST 2010

Thanks Derek, I'll skip that suggestion! 

> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 13:14:50 -0500
> Subject: RE: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> From: derek at ihtfp.com
> To: wrbird at hotmail.com
> CC: daniel3ub at gmail.com; warlord at mit.edu; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Wed, December 15, 2010 1:00 pm, Wayne Bird wrote:
> >
> > Hello Daniel,
> >
> > Ah, this seems to be a bit different then what Derek was saying.  If I
> > understood Derek correctly (the big "if"), he has two accounts for the
> > same item; Asset:Bank:Movies and Liability:Expense:Movies.  So
> > transactions would go something like this: Add paycheck to
> > Income:Paycheck; transfer Income:Paycheck to Asset:Bank:Movies.  Purchase
> > movie, transfer Asset:Bank:Movies to Liability:Expense:Movies
> 
> Not quite.  For one thing there's no such thing as "Add paycheck to
> Income:Paycheck".  The first step is purely "Transfer from Income:Paycheck
> to Assets:Bank".  Also, there is no such account as
> "Liability:Expense:Movies".  It's purely "Expense:Movies".
> 
> > If I understand what you're saying, there is only one account,
> > Liability:Expense:Movies.  So transactions would be as follows: Add
> > paycheck to Income:Paycheck; transfer Income:Paycheck to
> > Liability:Expense:Movies.  Now when I purchase a movie what do I do?  I
> > can't transfer from Liability:Expense:Movies to Liability:Expense:Movies.
> > I'm sorry if am a bit dense (or a lot), please hang with me and I'll get
> > it.  And I've read a lot of the documentation before I started this
> > thread.  So I guess that proves how dense I am:(
> 
> This is absolutely the WRONG way to do it.  There is no Liability here.
> 
> > Wayne
> 
> -derek
> 
> > From: daniel3ub at gmail.com
> > Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:43:43 -0200
> > Subject: Re: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> > To: wrbird at hotmail.com
> > CC: warlord at mit.edu; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >
> > Hi, Wayne.
> >
> > Actually, you are working with Income and Expenses accounts, but you
> > didn´t know it :)
> >
> > What I´d do:
> > Create a Liability account for every category you have. These will be your
> > envelopes.
> > In your paycheck transaction, create a split for each category you have,
> > pointing towards the corresponding Liability account.
> >
> >
> >
> > Every time you expend some money, create a transaction in the
> > corresponding liability account, with the split pointing towards the
> > corresponding Expense account.
> >
> > Also, reading the docs Derek suggested is aways a good idea ;)
> >
> >
> >
> > Good Luck!=====
> > Daniel Trezub
> > http://www.gameblogs.com.br
> >
> >
> >
> > On 15 December 2010 14:07, Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks Derek for your reply!
> >
> >
> >
> > Yes, define "standard accounting method" -- good question:)  Granted,
> > everyone has their own way of doing things, however it appears the most
> > common method is tracking assets, income, expense, etc. where income is
> > viewed separately from expenses.  For example, my paycheck would just go
> > into an income account and that's it.  Then I would track all my expenses
> > through various expense accounts.  On the other hand,  I have always used
> > the envelope system, divvying out my paycheck into these various
> > categories.  So these categories (or accounts) can be seen as both income
> > (because I'm splitting my paycheck/income into these categories) and
> > expense (because I'm purchasing items from these categories).  This is
> > what makes the most sense to my little brain:) and that's why I'm having
> > difficulty with "standard" accounting methods because they have to be
> > separate.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm sure I'm making this more difficult than it should be, so if you
> > please continue to with me I'll use the suggestion of subaccounts that
> > each of you made and go from there.  I haven't had a chance yet to look
> > into this, but I will soon.  So as Derek, as John Mason stated, is your
> > checking account just a placeholder for all the subaccounts?  What John
> > stated made sense to me and this is what I'll try first.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Again, thanks all of you for holding my hand through this!!  I greatly
> > appreciate your help.  As I continue down this road I'm sure I'll have
> > more questions.
> >
> >
> >
> > Wayne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> From: warlord at MIT.EDU
> >
> >> To: wrbird at hotmail.com
> >
> >> CC: adardis at gmail.com; jmason at masondrywall.com; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >
> >> Subject: Re: Tracking Money in Savings Account
> >
> >> Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 10:09:24 -0500
> >
> >>
> >
> >> Wayne Bird <wrbird at hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> >>
> >
> >> > Thanks so much for your help!  I will continue to play around, and I'm
> >> sure I'll be back with more questions.
> >
> >> >
> >
> >> > Though I used the envelope system in the past, it seems that's not the
> >
> >> > standard accounting method.  I tweaked MSMoney for years in order to
> >
> >> > make it "act" like an envelope system and I don't want to tweak
> >
> >> > GnuCash to do this, I'd rather just learn how GnuCash is designed to
> >
> >> > be used and use it accordingly.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> Define "standard accounting method"?  It's certainly one way that many
> >
> >> people do it.  GnuCash doesn't need to be tweaked to do this.  In fact
> >
> >> it's somewhat designed to support this!  See, for example, the "Open
> >
> >> Subaccounts" option on the reconcile dialog.  This lets you reconcile
> >
> >> a Bank Account with subaccounts.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> You can also look at the Budget features of GnuCash, but I've never used
> >
> >> them myself so I cannot comment on them.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> >
> >> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> >
> >>
> >
> >> -derek
> >
> >>
> >
> >> --
> >
> >>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
> >
> >>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
> >
> >>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
> >
> >>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
> >
> >
> >
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