2.4.1 depreciation basics

[John Ralls]

On 25 May 2014, at 13:02, CCAAT <ccaat at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:

> OK
> 
> So I performing my first straight line depreciation. Bought
> a truck, Wrote 2 checks a few weeks apart for it
> 5K for the truck, 668.62 for the taxes. Accountants
> says to do 60 month straight line
> 
> math is 94.47 for 59 months and 94.89 for the 60th month.
> 
> The 2 checks were first entered into the checkbook register
> as they occurred. I followed the depreciation example given
> in the  Ramachandran book (version 2.4) on page 159.
> 
> After I was done creating the truck depreciation account for
> 5668.62 and manually put 3 months into depreciation for oct,
> nov and dec 2013, the check book register combined the checks
> as a single entry on the check book register.
> 
> Advice or and explanation  or better yet a documented example of
> what to do so I can follow it wold be appreciated.

Dunno what the Ramachandran book says about this, but the correct way is to create an Asset account for the truck and an Expense:Depreciation account. If you want you can make a depreciation subaccount to the asset account. The checks are recorded as transfers from the checking account to the asset account, and every month you transfer $94.97 from the asset account (or the depreciation sub-account if you decide to do that) to the expense account (make an SX so you don't have to remember).

If you got the checks combined into a single transaction you must have done that yourself by making them splits rather than separate transactions. GnuCash won't do that on its own.

Regards,
John Ralls