Travel Expense Advice...

[Yawar Amin]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 2:06 PM, Alan Anderson <foilistforever at gmail.com>wrote:

> [...]
>
>   A:Checking =                     -$10.00,
>   E:Auto:Gas = $10.00,
>   E:Travel:Fall 2010 =            -$10.00,
>   E:Travel:Fall 2010 = $10.00.
>
> This eliminates some of the entry error because it's all done at once, but
> it's still a little tedious.  Is there any way to make a template for this
> split transaction, so that I only have to change the amount?
>

GnuCash doesn't have templates except for scheduled transactions, but you
can go into the E:Travel:Fall 2010 register, then just `duplicate' the
transactions you want to enter again (toolbar button), and change the
amounts to what you need.


> How do most people deal with these types of tracking issues?  What are the
> "best practices" for tracking travel expenses?
>

Best practices are compiled in [1], but keep in mind that this covers the
scenario where the personal and business accounts are kept in two separate
files. For your scenario where you are presumably keeping one book, your
transaction above looks pretty good to me. It will collect all your expenses
for the Fall 2010 trip in one account register and you can easily generate a
report from there. In fact, the account itself can be named anything (say,
Tags:Projects:Fall2010) because you're just routing money through it to
`tag' certain transactions.

Pretty innovative use of GC accounts if you ask me.

Hope this helps,

Yawar

[1] http://code.gnucash.org/docs/guide/accts-oa5.html#accts-oa7