Confused on a split deposit transaction with cash back

Edward Doolittle edward.doolittle at gmail.com
Wed Jan 18 17:47:13 EST 2017


One way to enter the transaction is like this:

Income:Taxable Income:Salary cr 1032.98
Income:Taxable Income:Bonus cr  667.63
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account dr 1600.61
Assets:Current Assets:Cash dr 100.00

cr means credit, dr means debit; credit and debit determine which column in
the transaction register to use when entering the amount. It can be
confusing because the titles of the credit and debit columns are most
likely not credit or debit, but change depending on what account you're in;
if you're in a checking account, they will be dr=Deposit, cr=Withdrawal.
You can enter the transaction through any of the four accounts (I usually
open my checking account to enter my pay). Notice that there are four
splits, two credits and two debits, which makes it a more complicated
transaction than usual.

It sounds like you're most of the way there. There's a video that may help
at https://youtu.be/_l9sxlfF9Fw?list=PLLuhcl-Y-AM8LD1M7Fe5VfyWxEQL02ZOf .

However, what you really want is to enter the transaction in a way that
mirrors your bank's view of things, so that you will be able to easily
reconcile your accounts against the bank statement when it arrives at the
end of the month. It may be that the bank sees the deposit and withdrawal
as two separate transactions, in which case you should do something like
this:

Deposit Transaction
Income:Taxable Income:Salary cr 1032.98
Income:Taxable Income:Bonus cr 667.63
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account dr 1700.61

Withdrawal Transaction
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account cr 100.00
Assets:Current Assets:Cash dr 100.00

You should use the two transaction method if your bank statement arrives
with two lines: Deposit 1700.61 Withdrawal 100.00. You should use the one
transaction method if your bank statement arrives with one line: Deposit
1600.61. I think the latter is unlikely.

Your bank may even break down the deposit into two transactions, one for
each check, which would be even easier to enter (each transaction would
only have two splits, like most ordinary transactions):

Deposit Transaction 1
Income:Taxable Income:Salary cr 1032.98
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account dr 1032.98

Deposit Transaction 2
Income:Taxable Income:Bonus cr 667.63
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account dr 667.63

Withdrawal Transaction
Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account cr 100.00
Assets:Current Assets:Cash dr 100.00

One more However: your pay may have a whole host of deductions including
income tax, health benefits, and so on, so you should really sit down and
enter it all carefully. My employer provides an "advice slip" or something
similar with every pay check listing the deductions. So your actual wage
will likely be higher, but then you would add more splits for various
deductions (e.g., income tax could go to an Expenses:Tax:Income Tax
account, health benefits to Expenses:Tax:Income Tax, etc.. In order to
enter a pay check efficiently, I just copy the last pay check and edit the
numbers to match the advice slip. Even your bonus might have a bunch of
deductions.

I'm sure this is all in the user guide somewhere, but it has been a while
since I looked at it so I can't say where in the user guide.

E

On 18 January 2017 at 15:44, kaloa <kaloa.devine at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm very new to both accounting and Gnucash, I can not get this to
> work....I've got 2 seperate checks, with 100 cash taken at time of deposit.
>
> bonus check for         667.63
> regular paycheck for 1032.98
> Total                       1700.61
> Cashback                  100.00
>
> If I use the 1700.61 total without accounting for the cashback, I'm 100 off
> in my register, the bank only shows 1600.61 as the actual deposit..how to
> account for the 100 cash? The 100 cash keeps popping into both columns..
> <http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/n4689022/
> Screenshot_2017-01-18_15.png>
>
>
> For now I've given up on sorting it and just put in a 1600.61 deposit
>
>
>
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> View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.
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> with-cash-back-tp4689022.html
> Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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-- 
Edward Doolittle
Associate Professor of Mathematics
First Nations University of Canada
1 First Nations Way, Regina SK S4S 7K2

« Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mécontents
et un ingrat. »
-- Louis XIV, dans Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. XXVI


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