question

[John Ralls]

> On Jul 7, 2015, at 9:27 PM, Dorel Ciornei <dorelciornei at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Some accounting software (for ex QB) allow to create a "Class".As such I had used Expense accounts to record Gas, Maintenance, Insurance, etc, but assign each transaction to the corresponding "class", for ex: Altima, Escort, Passat, etc. Then you could easily run a report for the specific class of interest and see all the transactions for that car only.
> Can GNU Cash use such "Classes"? I briefly looked but I didn't see any way to assign any transaction to a special group.Have I missed that functionality?
> As far as where the transactions are recorded, in my humble opinion:
> Cars are assets whether used in business or not, therefore one should track their value in an asset account:
> Assets: ->
> -> Subaru
> -> Ford, etc
> What you spend for the cars you track as an expense (some deductible if used for business, some not):Expenses: ->
> -> Gas-> Maintenance-> Registration
> -> Insurance: -> Auto Insurance (I have also sub-accounts for Home insurance, Health Insurance, etc)
> 
> If you have a loan for that car, you track it in Liabilities:Liability:
> -> Loans: -> Subaru 2014 Loan 
> 
> That is how I do it.But it would be nice to have "classes" in order to track easier the expenses.
> You assign each car to a class, then no need for a gazillion sub-accounts.

GnuCash doesn’t have a feature analogous to classes, but does have a notes field in each transaction and a memo field on each split that you can use for whatever purpose you like. They’re free text, and you need to be in double-line view and split view respectively to see them. I don’t know of any reports that can filter on them but Find can.

Regards,
John Ralls