Setting up a Business Expense Account without MS-Money Classifcations

[Phil Longstaff]

I would set up "Expense Account" as an Asset (it's really "Amount my employer 
owes me for expenses I paid for his behalf") which could go under 
Assets:Receivables i.e. Assets:Receivables:Expense Account.

Now Business Miles.  What is the purpose of this account?  If it is simply a 
holding account that you transfer amounts into (e.g. by your 2nd transaction), 
then either 1) it has type Expense, and periodically, you print a report on its 
contents and submit expense claims (transaction 3), or 2) it could be an asset 
account under Assets:Receivables:Expense Account.  You might have:

Assets
    Receivables
        Expense Account
            Car use (or mileage)
            Hotel
            Meals

Now, a report on the items in the Expense Account hierarchy will tell you what 
you haven't been reimbursed for.  If you set the split status to 'c' when you 
submit the report, then looking at the uncleared transactions (status = ' ') 
tells you what you still need to submit a claim for (note to self: need an 
option in a report to include/exclude transactions by reconciliation status).  
When you are reimbursed, you can reconcile to set the split reconciliation 
status to 'y'.

 Phil
---------
I used to be a hypochondriac AND a kleptomaniac. So I took something for it.




________________________________
From: Ian X Waddington <iwaddox at gmail.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Sent: Thu, December 23, 2010 1:29:25 PM
Subject: Setting up a Business Expense Account without MS-Money Classifcations

Hi



I’ve been thinking about how I might use GnuCash as it was designed and for
the time being at least without the equivalent of MS-Money Classifications.



I would welcome feedback on my logic below and I’d like some guidance as to
the GnuCash Account Types I should use for ‘Business Miles’ and ‘Expense
Account’. Shown as the two red question marks.



If I use this approach in GnuCash I would expect each expense claim period
to be a sub-account of the Expenses Account.



I’ve used excel to picture the account structures and to prove that I start
and end with £500, which I assume is good!!!







Thank you for your help.



Ian