Can cash purchases track suppliers and GST?

[Cam Ellison]

On 10/02/15 11:25 AM, Liz wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 10:10:57 -0700
> Scott Rowed <scott.rowed at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is there any easy way to track vendors and GST (Canada) when making
>> cash purchases? For example I shop at Costco for the following items
>> and pay cash:
>>
>>
>> Batteries....15.99 + 5% GST
>> USB flash drive....29.99 + 5% GST
>> Pizza for office party....13.00 (no GST)
>>
>>
>> At the end of the year I'd like to access a report on my purchases at
>> Costco. Also, of course, I need to find out my total GST for the
>> government reports.
>>
>>
>> In Gnucash, it seems that the best way I can do this is to open up a
>> new bill to post in accounts payable, enter the data, then pay it
>> after. This way it has the tax fields as well as linking the
>> purchases to a specific vendor.
>>
>>
>> I used to use Quickbooks and there it was quite easy and fast.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
> Do you put Costco in the payee field, or batteries, USB flashdrive and
> pizza?
> If you have a consistent entry in a field eg Payee, you can run a
> search for "Costco" in "Payee" and then filter by date for the
> financial or other year. Then you run a report.
> I put in my GST by splitting entries at the time. I use Invoices but
> not Bills.
>
I created a Liabilities account for GST with 3 subaccounts:

GST Paid (what I pay out)
GST Payable (what I charge my clients)
GST Payments (what I actually send to CRA)

GST Paid and GST Payments are contra-accounts - entries will have the 
opposite sign to GST Payable (which is negative in my setup). If you 
maintain accuracy, the net amount showing in the parent account will be 
what you currently owe.

Cheers

Cam