interest- income, or expense?

[David T.]

You most likely need separate accounts for each interest account--at least that is how it's worked best for me. The point is that interest you earn is *Income* and needs to be tracked as such, in the income branch. Interest you pay out is an *Expense* and needs to be tracked as such.

In order to track your tax liabilities, you will want to have them in separate accounts. I personally keep individual interest payee/payers in different accounts. It makes it much easier for me to track the different streams when tax time rolls around. My bank reports the interest it paid me, and I have an account to match with it.

My rule is: if I want to keep track of something, separate it out. I think it's easier to aggregate than untangle.

As for the currency issue, I will defer to others who use them. My understanding is that you would have to have separate account trees for each currency, but I don't believe you'd need two accounts for each payee/payer, unless said entity has a habit of handling multiple currencies (paying you interest in dollars and Euros, say). 


David



________________________________
 From: Anna's unattended mail <anna.morris-1okt59qe at cool.fr.nf>
To: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org 
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2012 1:58 AM
Subject: Re: interest- income, or expense?
 
On 2012-09-20, Frank H. Ellenberger <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Eventually you should have 2:
> Expense:Interests for loans you use,
> Income:Capital Gains:Interests for loans you gave.

Presumably this is because the interest earned is taxable, while the
interest paid is not necessarily deductible.  I actually have a
few kinds of interest:

1) interest derived from a savings account

2) interest paid on a home loan (deductible in one tax regime, but not
   the other)

3) interest paid on non-home loans (possibly deductible in one tax
   regime, but not the other)

4) "interest" charged by the government for paying a tax withholding
   late

I suppose this means I need 8 interest accounts (4 times the number of
currencies)?

_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user at gnucash.org
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.