question

Wm wm+gnc at tarrcity.demon.co.uk
Wed Jul 8 20:40:16 EDT 2015


Tue, 7 Jul 2015 20:52:42 
<CANB4v16G_PZ4cn6b5MpF5BzSwYYQ8WKAoRPv4VxNnMLYKsGRmQ at mail.gmail.com> 
Michael Ferrara <mferrara1 at gmail.com>

>I have wondered about this too. We have Joshua's schema which includes
>Vehicles of subaccounts of major expense categories. Then there is Dave's
>schema which includes categories as subaccounts of vehicle expenses.
>
>I am not a database expert, but the two schemes appear to be "inverses" of
>each other, correct?

Close enough for this discussion, I think

>Would it be possible to add a "layer" of asset/liability accounts for the
>redundant subaccounts? You could then (I think) run a cash-flow report. For
>example:
>
>(Liabilities)
>-Subaru
>-Ford
>-Toyota
>
>(Expenses)
>-Maintenance
>-Fuel
>-Legal
>     --Insurance
>     --Registration
>
>I list the vehicles as liabilities (credit accounts) because they normally
>balance expenses (debit accounts.) (I suppose if the vehicles are used for
>business to generate a profit they could be listed as assets instead.)

That makes sense, if your vehicles are mainly things you pay for then 
they should be Liabilities by that measure.

Mind you, show me a man that thinks his prized car is a Liability rather 
than an Asset and we might need day time TV :)

>Does that make sense? Has anyone tried this? (Any RDBM's out there?)

RDBM-ness doesn't help a lot in this case.  What might is the knowledge 
of how flexible gnc is in account tree structure.

Say you have

Expenses
  =Vehicles
   =Bicycle
   =Plane
   =Car

and costs below that the DaveH way

there is nothing stopping anyone having

Expenses
  =Vehicles
   =Maint
   =Fuel
   =Stuff

and, here is the fun bit, moving the accounts at the detail level 
inbetween the structures and reporting on them.

It just works when I do it.

If you're new to this sort of stuff and not using the xml backend you 
might want to make a backup before experimenting but for occasional 
analysis (up to you if week or month or quarter is right) you really can 
have multiple account structures and just move relevant accounts around.

There is another way mentioned later in this thread, but don't say you 
don't have choices.

Have fun and play safe on the roads :)

-- 
Wm...


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