Running separate accounts in the same Gnucash program

[Michael Ferrara]

I use the following account structure for business entities.

BUSINESS BALANCE (top-level account of type Asset)
BUSINESS BALANCE:Assets, A/R, inventory, etc. as subaccounts
BUSINESS BALANCE:Liabilities, A/P, Taxes, Payroll, Credit Cards, etc. as
subaccts

BUSINESS PROFIT (top-level account of type Income)
BUSINESS PROFIT:Taxable Income, Under-the-table Income, Sales, Interest,
etc. as subaccts.
BUSINESS PROFIT:Expenses, fees, mileage, depreciation, etc. et cetera

And sometimes,
BUSINESS EQUITY (top-level or under a master EQUITY account)

Nota bene that assets & liabilities are grouped together under the same
parent. Ditto for income & expenses.  This is The Matching Principle at
work.

The above structure is sometimes called "profit center accounting" and has
the advantage that your business' accounts are set up like a balance sheet
& income statement and can be collapsed into two lines: where your business
currently is and how it got there.

You can repeat this process with your personal accounts, investments,
clubs, and so on, each entity being a top level account in a SINGLE gnc
file for the year. This makes analysis such as Cash Flow and Taxes so much
easier than exporting two or more separate files into a spreadsheet (tho
that is cool, if you are savvy with python and sql.)

~Mike

On May 2, 2015 8:16 AM, "Gregory Forster" <fgreg74 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> What I would do, is create a personal account, using your name and
manually post transactions in your main account from your combo account.
Then delete those transactions from your combo account. It sounds long and
tedious, but it's worth it.  I ALWAYS told my clients to keep their
personal and business accounts separate. Of course few listened, until I
started to charge them extra for the time I spent segregating their
business income and expenses from their personal income and expenses.
>
> When you create another business account, say like Beaufort's Floral
Arrangements and Supplies.  Just call it, BFAS. Switching between different
account can easily be done by ALT-F and changing which account you want.
>
> I also use Truecrypt to encrypt my GNUcash files for all entities. Grant
it, now I just have my personal account and the church account.  Though
Truecrypt is no longer supported, I still use it for added security.
>
> Greg
>
>
> On 5/1/2015 6:06 PM, Michael Hendry wrote:
>>
>> On 1 May 2015, at 22:25, Courtney Perry <coujen963 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Currently my personal finances and my business finances run in the same
file: gcashdata_1.gnucash.1. How may I now separate my personal finances
from my business?
>>
>> I’ve never done this (nor have I had need to do so) - you might be
better to wait for advice from someone who’s travelled this particular path.
>>
>> I think you’d be best to run the accounts as they are until the end of
the financial year, and at that point create two entirely new files, one
for your personal and one for your business. The starting balances for the
new files will be the ending balances for the appropriate accounts in the
old files.
>>
>>
>>> 2. How can I add a new (2nd) business and run it separately from my
current personal and business finances?
>>
>> File=>New
>>
>> Michael
>>
>>> My operating system is Windows 8.1 and I am running Gnucash 2.6.6
>>> And thanks for the explanation on setting up the desktop icon, it
worked.
>>> Courtney
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