how to track expenses for for assets such as cars

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Chad Chenault <chadchenault at gmail.com> writes:

> Hello, I am a new user to gnucash (2010) and am using it on ubuntu and
> winxp.
> I have used MSmoney for since 1994 and am very comfortable with it. I plan
> to move completely to linux in the near future and that's why I am investing
> the time to learn gnucash.
>
> My question is: How do track expenses for 2 different cars ex: pickup95 &
> prius2007. I want to track gasoline, maintanence, inurance etc.
> In msmoney I had expense catergories (accounts) auto:gas, auto: maintenance
> etc.  ms money had an additional 'class' category that I have not seen in
> gnucash. In msmoney I would enter the expense category- auto:maintenance and
> then there would be a separate field that I could enter 'pickup95'. This
> allowed me to print reports that separated my auto:maintenance expenses for
> my two vehichles pickup95 and prius2007.

Unfortunately GnuCash does not support tagging transactions (to mimic
"classes").  As we get more converts it's becoming a more wanted
feature, so hopefully someone will work on it.

> Is the solution to create subaccounts  Expense:Auto:Maintenance:pickup95',
> Expense:Auto:Maintenance:prius2007, Expense:Auto:gasoline:pickup95,
> Expense:Auto:gasoline:prius2007, Expense:Auto:Insurance:pickup95,
> Expense:Auto:Insurance:prius2007

There are two approaches.  You can do it this way,
Expense:Auto:{which-type}:{which-auto} or you can do it as
Expense:Auto:{which-auto}:{which-type}.  Which method you choose is more
about which piece of information is more important.  Is it more
important to see to total per vehicle or the total per type of auto
expense?  E.g., would you rather see "I spent a total of $x on
gasoline", or would you rather see "I spent a total of $x on car x"?

> Thanks,
> Chad Chenault

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-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
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