Can GNU Cash keep track of expenses of multiple businesses?

[Shane Litherland]

Yves,

so, from your end, having three top-level accounts in one gnucash file
might actually be easier to use..

from the authorities' perspective, having them as three separate files
would be much easier to demonstrate they are separate and independent.

I reckon I'd be doing it the slightly harder way for myself, so I can
sleep easier at night ;-)

Also given your setup, chances are they'd have little in the way of txns
between them for you to benefit from the former 'shortcut'.. unless you
intend to do 'hand-me-down' furniture and have to deal with capital
depreciations/write-offs etc.. ;-)

-shane.

On Wed, 2012-02-01 at 05:41 -0500, Yves S. Garret wrote:
> 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.
> >