New user questions

Christopher Lam christopher.lck at gmail.com
Tue Oct 3 23:37:37 EDT 2017


Re: mileage recording

I record business mileage using an unused currency (ZMK, whose display
symbol I've changed to 'km') - this means I maintain one datafile rather
than multiple spreadsheets, and using a different currency avoids
accidentally mixing up numbers.

If I visit my accountant, travelling 10km, and get charged $200 for the
advice, I generally record them simply as follows:

1) Expenses:Business:Accountant AUD$200
  Assets:Bank -AUD$200

2) Expenses:Business:Mileage 10 ZMK
 Equity:Mileage -10 ZMK
 (or if I used a cab)
 Expenses:Business:Travel AUD $20
 Assets:Bank -AUD $20

And the transaction report will count all kms and AUD separately, to the
delight of the accountant. I could even convert the ZMKs into AUDs by
ticking 'convert amounts into common currency', and the Aussie Tax Office
rate of $0.66/km will apply because I've recorded this in the commodity
price editor.

The only difficulty I can think of is that my balance sheet will consider
these mileage as expenses, artificially reducing my net worth. This is
unfortunate; after all, a life well travelled is usually enriched by the
experience...

C

On 3 October 2017 at 17:22, jeffrey black <beastmaster126 at hotmail.com>
wrote:

> On 9/29/2017 5:43 AM, Maf. King wrote:
> > Hi Wesley,
> >
> > Welcome to GC & the list.
> >
> > On Friday, 29 September 2017 01:07:00 BST Wesley Vick wrote:
> >> Greeting
> >   I
> >> have begin entering all my expenses since Jan 1 2017. I have finally
> >> finished entering all the expenses and entered the balance of my
> checking
> >> account. Here is my problem. All the receipts posted have already been
> >> paid. The balance of my checking account is what I have right now. After
> >> entering everything, I am showing a negative balance of $6,000.00. How
> can
> >> I fix the software to show the true balance and that is what is in the
> >> checking account. Can I go into Equity and maybe show starting balance
> of
> >> the negative $6,000 or do I need to go back to January and start
> entering
> >> all deposits that have been made?
> > I'm a little confused here - you say you have entered everything, then
> you ask
> > if you need to enter an opening balance and the deposits into your
> account.
> > which is true?
> >
> > When you started your GC records in January, you should have entered an
> > "opening balance", (probably dated 31st Dec 2016) - there is a box for
> this as
> > part of the account setup dialogue box.  You would find this "opening
> balance"
> > number on a bank statement or other doc from your institution.  If you
> missed
> > this step, no problem, go ahead and create one manually.  You want to use
> > Equity:Opening Balances as the transfer account.
> >
> > this step ensures that as of the first second of this year, GC and your
> bank
> > agree with how much money you have in that account.
> >
> > Record all your expenses and incomes for that account, and throughout the
> > year, the GC balance should closely follow the totals on your bank
> statements.
> >
> >
> >> I appreciate all the work you have done
> >> creating this software for there are more than 400 police officers that
> >> work for this firm part time and they are a ll interested in this
> software.
> > Great, I hope it helps them and they "get" the idea of open source
> software
> > and are eventually able to help the community of us other users around
> the
> > world in some way.
> >
> >
> >> All I need now is to find software to track my mileage for my vehicle.
> Is
> >> there a section in this software that I can submit a time sheet for the
> >> work completed that will show the hours worked, time in, time out,
> location
> >> of the security work performed as well as the mileage driven?
> > I don't think so.  It is an accounting package, not a time-management
> tool.
> > You may be able to track mileage using the stocks & commodities section,
> but
> > I'm not sure if it would be a very good idea.  Speradsheets like
> LibreOffice
> > Calc might be a better bet, or some project management packages.
> >
> > You could also see if the Customer/Invoice section will work, but it may
> not
> > produce results exactly like a "timesheet"
> >
> > Good Luck,
> > Maf.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
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> > .
> >
> Wesley:
>
> I think Maf pretty much answered your first 2 questions so I will not
> comment on them.  Your third one on time, mileage, etc. well that can be
> done with a little consideration of the accounts you use.  The World
> Class Guru's that developed GNU-Cash went a little further in their
> development than they realized.  You can keep records for a lot more
> than dollars in and out.  And I am more than grateful for their efforts,
> especially at tax time.  Right now I am in the process of setting up a
> set of accounts to keep track of my cattle (shots, calves, sell, death
> loss, etc). GNU-Cash allows you to split a transaction out to many
> accounts, so long as all debits match all credits.  Once I got it
> knocked thru my thick skull that dollars ain't necessarily dollars,
> might be chickens to pay the doctor, a lot of unconventional and
> unexpected uses opened up for GNU-Cash.  Just don't show the reports to
> your accountant.
>
> Before you even begin to try and set up a system for this, create a new
> GNU-Cash file to work with because you are going to make a specialty set
> of books and a lot of mistakes before you get it set up the way YOU want
> it.  You will probably want a separate file for this anyway.  You can
> always add other needed accounts as needed.
>
> I routinely track my mileage for my farm use, our medical, and my wife's
> schedule C business for each trip for farm/business/medical.  Each
> purchase/doctor trip includes a mileage entry, in my case all tax
> deductible.  I have 2 accounts set up for mileage, one for each round
> trip, and one accumulated mileage.  In simple terms the round trip
> mileage is dollars and payee is to/from vendor/doctor.  In your case you
> may have to use actual odometer reading, like I hear on my scanner.  For
> me, accumulated round trip mileage is considered as an income account
> (love U.S. tax code, NOT) while individual round trip miles are an
> expense I pay out of pocket which go with each transaction.  At tax time
> I simply drop of the dollar sign and magically it is mileage.
>
> You would also need accounts for start time and end time going to an
> accumulated time account.  Again, magically time is dollars.  o 8
> hundred 30 is $8.30 .
>
> Location to is Payee, from is Notes.  Or you could combine them. With a
> little more planning you could even have accounts for beginning mileage
> and ending mileage going to respective accumulated mileage, with Payee
> to on start mileage and a return Payee on end mileage.
>
> All of these go into one transaction.  Play with the report generator
> and get a report that you can hopefully turn in as is or with a little
> addition and subtraction you can put the numbers directly into the forms
> required by your department.  A black Sharpie to mark out dollar signs
> where needed?
>
> Like I said, GNU-Cash was developed for double entry "money" entry.
> Money used to be beads, bear skins, etc.  Once you convince your self to
> think outside the box, GNU-Cash is an extremely formidable program.  For
> your purposes "money" in any pair of accounts can be any commodity you
> want it to be.  They do not all have to be dollars despite the dollar
> sign in front of them.
>
>
> --JEffrey Black M.B.A.
>
>
>
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