Can GNU Cash keep track of expenses of multiple businesses?

[Yves S. Garret]

The only reason why I want to do this is because if I buy apartments and rent them out and I put them as being ownedby its own LLC and -- God forbid -- I get sued, my losses will be contained to only that LLC and house.

On Jan 31, 2012, at 11:35 PM, Shane Litherland <litherland-farm at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Hi Yves,
> 
> As per Derek's comment, but there is another way to view the scenario:
> 
> One GNUcash file, with three top-level accounts (one for each business).
> 
> This would NOT be the recommended setup for business reasons, some would
> argue there is more transparency/independence in records in having three
> separate files.
> 
> HOWEVER, there have been comments over the time though in the GNUcash
> forums where some people have favoured this way for multiple
> 'businesses' (or e.g. three separate accounts for three individuals in a
> household) because they found the amount of 'internal' txns between said
> business units meant having them within one gnucash file was easier for
> them to enter/record txns, rather than having to record any 'transfer'
> as an expense from one then go and record that same amount as an income
> in the other.
> 
> It is in a very rough comparison, like having three separate spreadsheet
> documents or one spreadsheet document with three pages. Both ways record
> the same stuff. but moving info around involves subtly different
> processes.
> 
> Besides, if you have three separate files, it stops anyone that should
> only access one of them from viewing/breaking/tampering with stuff that
> they shouldn't!
> 
> PS if you are setting up three accts from scratch and they have a
> similar acct structure, you might be able to set up one, then save a
> copy or create a new one that inherits the same acct tree layout...
> you'd have to read up the gnucash info/tips on that but it could be
> handy??
> 
> -shane.
>