How should I record outstanding expenses in GnuCash?

[Kevin Reid]

On Sep 7, 2014, at 8:25, absconditus absconditus <absconditus87 at gmail.com> wrote:

> If the above is true, would not transaction B contradict the following rule:
> 
> "The two Income and Expense Accounts are used to increase or decrease
> the value of your accounts. Thus, while the balance sheet accounts
> simply track the value of the things you own or owe, income and
> expense accounts allow you to change the value of these accounts."
> http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/accts-concepts1.html#accts-bsa2
> 
> This on the grounds that we are changing both Balance Sheet Accounts
> without using Income and Expense accounts.

Read that rule as meaning the _total_ value of your accounts. The change in the total value here is $0.

As I mentioned before, what we're doing is exactly like recording credit card expenses and then paying your credit card bill -- the latter involves no income or expense accounts, but only asset (your checking account, usually) and liability (the credit card).

Another example is transferring money between asset accounts (say, savings to checking, or even withdrawing cash and putting it in your wallet). Again, no income or expense accounts are involved, and that's okay, because your _total_ is the same.

-- 
Kevin Reid                                  <http://switchb.org/kpreid/>