Transaction Date Question

[James Bucklew]

*M. Novfack wrote:*

*I am not a professional tax advisor, so take this with the necessary
grains of salt << though I did work in an industry (insurance) where the
legal date of a payment could be very important. And what jurisdictions
you are in might make a big difference.

I think you are wrong in both cases. A payment by check is legally yours
when you receive it, not when you get around to depositing it, and if
the check is mailed to you, that would be not the date delivered to you
but the date of the postmark << when "constructive delivery" was made >>

The first case is often treated by having an "undeposited cash" account
(treating a check that has arrived into your possession but that you
haven't taken to the bank yet the same as if somebody handed you the
payment in cash). Then when you get around to making the deposit, that
transaction is just a transfer between two asset account.

Note that matters like this are mainly important around the end of a
fiscal/reporting period.


Michael D Novack*

Thank you so much for your thoughts.  I'm not sure how much I should
get into this but I'm just trying to follow the advice of my
accountant.  My question is if I can do what he asks easily via
GnuCash.

One way I see to do this is just to keep two separate ledgers.  Every
check that comes in, I post in one ledger as it's issued date.  In the
other ledger I post it as the day it gets deposited (or postmarked ...
either one is fine as they will be virtually identical.

Another way I'm thinking of is to post a check twice ... labeling it
as Gross Receipt Tax Applicable Income and have it posting date be the
postmarked/deposited date and then post the check again labeling it as
Regular Income and have it posting date be the issuance date.  Note
that not all checks coming in will be Gross Receipts Taxable ... so
for those checks I would just post them to Regular Income and they
would not be duplicated.  Then I need a way to filter out one or the
other of these two income streams so that they don't get counted
twice.  Is that possible?

Do any other solutions come to mind?


thanks again.








On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 10:09 AM, James Bucklew <bucklewspain at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I'm a complete beginner to GnuCash and accounting software in general.  My
> issue is that I have need to have two different transaction dates for two
> different purposes.
>
> 1)  For paying a Gross Receipts Tax, I need to be able to have a set of
> book where the transaction date for a check for services is dated on the
> date that it is deposited in the bank.
>
> 2)  For Federal/State Tax, I need to have a set of books where the
> transaction date for the check for services is dated on the date of
> issuance of the check.  (Just of information: This will allow my 1099 forms
> to match up.)
>
> These two dates vary wildly .... I'm paid by insurance companies for
> services rendered ... the issuance date of a check may vary by 2-4 months
> from the time that I actually physically receive it in my bank account.
>
> Is there a way to do this easily in GnuCash without having to maintain
> (and fill in seperately) two completely seperate ledgers?
>
> Best regards and thanks in advance,
>
> James Bucklew
>