How to split and/or set accounts?

Tue Jul 23 14:47:03 EDT 2013

I'm guessing here, because I'm not sure I'm clear on what you want, but it
sounds like you're trying to have a single $1000 debit (which is balancing
you also have some kind of a total taxes account that you also want to have
show the transaction...

Expenses:CarA:Taxes and Fees
Expenses:CarB:Taxes and Fees.

-and-

Expenses:Taxes

The fact that there are two cars involved isn't really the issue...the
solution you've described (entering splits) is essentially the correct
solution for having a single $1000 cc. entry and dividing over two cars.
 The other aspect I *think* you are asking for is an impossibility in terms
of account structure.  It sounds like for this example $1000 transaction
paying fees for two cars, you want the transaction to look like:

liabilities:credit card -> credit $1000
Expenses:CarA:Taxes and Fees  -> debit $500
Expenses:CarB:Taxes and Fees. -> debit $500
Expenses:All Taxes  -> Debit $1000

but have the extra $1000 debit to Expenses:taxes not count as a separate
debit from the two car expense.  Or at least have the same $1000 debit show
up when you look at Expenses:Car<n>:taxes and fees, as well as in
Expenses:All Taxes, but only count as a single $1000 debit.

 If that's the gist of it, then no, you cannot do what you want that
way..and if Gnucash let you do that it would break the core functionality
of double entry accounting.  Total debits and credits have to balance for a
single transaction, and if you've try the transaction above, Gnucash will
just add a $1000 credit to the imbalance account.  Accounts also can only
have one parent account (changing that might not violate double entry book
keeping, but I think would break a lot of built-in assumptions about how to
sum child account totals into parent account totals, so I doubt it would
ever be considered for a future feature).  There has been some talk of
adding "tags" to accounts (separate from the account tree) so accounts
could be tagged with multiple categories, but my guess is even if it was
implemented, the main use would be to aid in account selection for making
reports with non-default account selections, which is what you want to do
here...

What you CAN do is set up a spending report with only accounts you classify
as "taxes paid" included, and GnuCash will add up the contributions from
the selected reports.  (profit and loss will give you balances: there won't
be any "profit" if you don't select any income accounts, but perhaps
there's a more appropriate starting account if you want information other
than totals).  If there are a lot of tax accounts and they are spread out
over your account tree, then it's a bit of a hassle to go through the
account selection dialog in the report options but after you've done it
once you can create a custom report to remember the account selection.
 Note also that the profit / loss report has a specific date range so you
might need to change that as well to match the range you're interested in.

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 1:37 PM, Niranjan Rao <nhrdls at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the reply.
>
> I am sorry I did not make it clear in my earlier mails, but this is not
> what want
>
> Taking same example, I have to vehicle accounts, A and B. I track expenses
> related to vehicles (maintenance, repairs, taxes paid for vehicle)
> individual accounts.
>
> So my credit card shows $1000 as a charge, I split the transaction
> appropriately and assign 500 to each vehicle. So far, so good.
>
> What I would like to do "sub assign" if that's the word, this amount to
> taxes paid, so that when I check my tax account, I can still find these
> figures. In other words I am looking for a way to reach transaction from 3
> different accounts, credit card, vehicle and taxes. If I go to vehicle
> account, I should be able to see all expenses I have made on the vehicle
> including taxes. If I go to my credit card, I should be able to see total
> charge and how that money was split. If I go to to my tax account, I should
> be able to figure out I paid xyz amount without digging through other
> accounts.
>
> I am not expert in account and don't know if it makes sense from account
> perspective.
>
> Regards,
>
> Niranjan
>
> On 07/23/2013 02:02 AM, Subramanian Venkateswaran wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Credit Card -> Liability Account
>> Vehicle -> Expense Account
>> Vehicle Taxes -> Expense Account
>>
>> Let us assume you spent 1000 USD on your vehicles and 50 USD on taxes and
>> you have paid using your credit card.
>>
>> You can directly go to your Credit Card Account and do the split in the
>> following way :
>>
>> a) Increase Credit Card Account by 1050
>> b) Increase Expense Account -> Vehicle by 1000
>> c) Increase Expense -Account -> Tax by 50
>>
>> Regards,
>> Subramanian V.
>> www.lifebytes.in <http://www.lifebytes.in>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 7:01 AM, Niranjan Rao <nhrdls at gmail.com <mailto:
>> nhrdls at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Greetings,
>>
>>     Renewed registration for two vehicles today. I used functionality
>>     of shopping cart on DMV's web site to combine both payments as one
>>     credit card charge.
>>
>>     I have split the transaction so that two accounts for vehicles get
>>     it's proper split.
>>
>>     Here is the problem I am facing.
>>
>>     I want to see details of this transaction at 3 locations:
>>
>>     1. My credit card (My upcoming bill for credit card) - Total
>>     transaction
>>     2. Vehicle (So that I know how much I am spending annually on
>>     maintenance and taxes)
>>     3. Taxes
>>
>>     Expense belongs to vehicle, however some part of the annual fee is
>>     tax deductible and I would like to keep track of taxes I am paying
>>     for future references.
>>
>>     What is the best way to set up this kind of transaction. Currently
>>     split transaction shows under vehicle account as expense, but
>>     split shows the original transaction.
>>
>>     Regards,
>>
>>     Niranjan
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Ian Konen
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