category structure for funds distributed across multiple bank accounts

[Matt Wilkie]

Hello,

In Gnucash, what is the best way to structure category accounts which will
hold funds distributed across several bank accounts?

In Canada we have Tax Free Savings accounts which return more interest than
regular savings accounts, but they have a quota on how much can be stored
in them without a tax penalty.

So for example say I have $15,000 saved for house renovations, which is
actually stored in 3 bank accounts: my TSFA, my spouse's, and a regular
savings. How do I represent that in the gnucash account structure? When
part of the money is spent, how should that be recorded? At any given time
we should be able to look at the *House Renos* "account" and answer the
question *"can we afford to replace the roof yet?"*

The standard Assets top level parent can't be used because then the virtual
category account of *"New bike"*, *"Vacation"*, etc. which also store funds
in those same accounts would be included in the roll up as well.

So I need to get these virtual accounts:

-Savings........................... $20000.00
  -House Renovations............... $15000.00
  -New bikes....................... $ 2000.00
  -Vacation........................ $ 2000.00
  -Other........................... $ 1000.00

>From these real accounts:

-Some Bank......................... $20000.00
  -Savings Account................. $10000.00
  -TFSA Account 1.................. $ 5000.00
  -TFSA Account 2.................. $ 5000.00

I've found a program called Budgeter which can roll things up like this,
but it's not meant for bookkeeping. I'd much rather have my cake and eat it
too! Here's a picture of Budgeter showing what I'd like to be able to do in
GnuCash: http://money.stackexchange.com/a/19125/7888

I read the gnucash docs for budgeting and it doesn't sound like what I'm
after. I don't care about the time period, it'll be done when we "have
enough", which might be one year or five. I don't need to track cash flow
or expenses either (for these categories). After reading about the net I
now know I'm using the "envelope system", I didn't realise it had a name,
however that can't be used (or I haven't figured out how) for money
disbursed across
accounts.<http://money.stackexchange.com/questions/19100/gnucash-category-structure-for-funds-distributed-across-multiple-bank-accounts#comment25642_19102>

Many thanks in advance for your thoughts,

-matt