Can Gnucash Be Used As Single Entry?

[Mark Phillips]

JL,

Before you go any further, I suggest you spend a little time learning what
double entry accounting means and why it is universally used by accountants
for keeping a set books for both personal and business entities. Here is
one link I found when googling for "double entry accounting tutorial".
There are 242,000 more entries if this one is not to your liking.
http://simplestudies.com/double-entry-accounting-system.html.

Once the idea of double entry accounting is clearer to you, then I would go
through the GnuCash tutorial -
http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide.pdf and you will see that
the user interface that GnuCash uses to create a double entry accounting
system is very easy and quick to use for entering transactions, reconciling
your accounts against bank statements, preparing tax statements for
yourself or your Accountant, and reporting the activities of your business
to any other interested parties.

A couple of hours invested now learning the basic concepts will make this
project much easier going forward.

Mark

On Sun, Jan 24, 2016 at 5:49 AM, JL Marcos ENDO <jlmaendo at outlook.com>
wrote:

> Thank you again, Michael.
>
> You say:
>
> "you would be entering transactions in one of two accounts",
>
> and at the end you also say:
>
> "The one transaction a month paying the credit card balance you could also
> enter here (specifying the checking account for the other account) or in
> the checking account (specifying the credit card as the other account).".
>
> I am not sure I understand completely (yet). But I will after a few more
> questions.
>
> 1. In Gnucash, with the system you recommend, will I be handling (entering
> data, info, numbers in) ONE tab (for the credit card account, for example),
> or  TWO tabs (one for credit card, one for bank checking account)?
> (my preference, you already know 😖 would be single-tab accounting)
>
> 2. If just one tab, and if that tab is the credit card account, how does
> the once-monthly business income that goes into the bank checking account
> get entered into the Gnush credit card tab?
>
> 3. Tax payments.
> Other than paying off the credit card balance and reimbursing myself for
> phone & mileage, tax payments I assume will also come from the checking
> bank account, and not the credit card.
> Does this change what you recommended yesterday?
>
> 4. This is what I have been doing since I started my small business a few
> weeks ago. Please, CRITIQUE:
>
> - one Excell spreadsheet with one tab
>
> - furthest left column is name of income source (always same) and places
> business money goes to (license, insurance, paying credit card, ES Tax
> payment, Withheld Tax payment, wages, health ins, pension, phone reimburs,
> mileage reimburs...)
>
> - top row says "JAN", "FEB" "MAR", "1st QUARTER", "APR", "MAY", "JUN",
> "2nd QUARTER", ..., "DEC",""4th QUARTER", "YEAR'S TOTAL"
>
> - I think I can get away with this grid because NONE of these expenses nor
> income happen more than once a month, and several only happen once a
> quarter (tax payments) or once a year (license, insurance)
>
> - I enter expenses in this single tab WHEN I use credit card to pay for it;
>
> - then I DONT enter anything when I pay credit card balance off,
> I pay balance in full (for my system to work, I will make sure I pay off
> the tax year's credit card balance by Dec 31, as per your comment on
> expense versus transfer).
>
> Thank you very much for anything else you decide to share.
>
> JL Marcos
> ________________________________
> From: Mike or Penny Novack<mailto:mpnovack at mtdata.com>
> Sent: ‎1/‎23/‎2016 22:31
> To: JL Marcos ENDO<mailto:jlmaendo at outlook.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: Can Gnucash Be Used As Single Entry?
>
> On 1/23/2016 9:41 PM, JL Marcos ENDO wrote:
> > Thank you, Mike. Thank you do your reply.
> >
> > I have zero knowledge of accounting, so I admit I didn't understand
> > your description of what Gnucash does nor your explanation of how my
> > using a checking account exclusively could be considered part of dual
> > entry accounting 😵
> >
> > Income is once a month, direct-deposited into business checking account.
> >
> > Expenses are about, say 30 a year.
> >
> > Most expenses are paid for with dedicated business credit card, whose
> > balance is paid off in full each month with money from business
> > checking account.
> >
> > A few expenses (tax payments, tax withholdings) will be paid by
> > whatever method IRS approves out of checking account. Business is
> > brand new so no tax payments made quite yet.
> >
> > Finally, two business expenses (business use of personal phone,
> > business mileage she driving personal vehicle) will actually be
> > reimbursements transferred from my business checking account into my
> > personal checking account.
> >
> > I like simplicity, so I'm looking for the way/product I can record
> > these transactions without unnecessary steps nor complex routines.
> >
> > What would you use if you had these needs and also wanted simplicity
> > and effectiveness? 😏
> >
> > Thank you very much.
> >
> > JL Marcos
>
> OK, if using gnucash you would be entering transactions in one of two
> accounts>
>
> 1) Checking ------ for your "income" and for the check written to pay
> the credit card balance.
> 2) Credit card (type is Liability) ---- for your expenses.
>
> And no NOT so simple. Please do note that you are paying for each
> expense when you incur the liability (not when you pay the credit card
> balance) and when you pay the credit card balance that is a transfer,
> not an expense (you are reducing the liability but at the same time
> reducing an asset)
>
> IMPORTANT TO NOTE: the expense belongs to the tax period when you
> incurred the liability, not necessarily the same tax period when you
> paid off the credit card balance (not a taxable event.
>
> What would I use? Probably gnucash. Besides being easy to enter, will
> generate the necessary reports.
>
> Let's come back here to " I didn't understand your description of what
> Gnucash does nor your explanation of how my using a checking account
> exclusively could be considered part of dual entry accounting"  It
> sounds like your checking account would be used for only a few
> transactions a month. At least two, salary coming in and check going out
> to pay credit card balance. So maybe not the best to look at except to
> note that you  might be forgetting a couple transactions. Is this an
> interest bearing checking account? Are there any bank fees charged?
>
> So let's instead consider the credit card. You would be working mainly
> in this account. You would enter transactions: date, vendor or other
> description, the particular expense account, and amount. Gnucash would
> then automatically enter into that expense account the same information
> in reverse (the paying account being the credit card) . The one
> transaction a month paying the credit card balance you could also enter
> here (specifying the checking account for the other account) or in the
> checking account (specifying the credit card as the other account).
>
>
>
> Michale D Novack.
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