[GNC] splits 3+ accounts, how to

[DaveC49]

Eric, Mike

To be fair to GnuCash, I have not been able to find a formal definition of
split in my accounting text books . The only formal references I could find
were under IAS39 which deals with embedded derivatives in a hybrid financial
instrument
(https://www.ventureline.com/accounting-glossary/S/split-accounting-definition/)
and that refers to the host contract in the instrument having to be
accounted separately from the embedded derivative and in cost management
accounting where a split-off point is defined for separate products which
are produced by the same process up to a specific point in their production.
There may be an informal practice of using split as a name or descriptor for
specific operations and perhaps in some specific jurisdictions where the
term may be defined in legislature.

Stock-splits are also generally prefixed by stock so that is clear,
similarly for split-interest. Split Bills of Exchange are the only other
formal reference I could find to usage of the term.

Several other accounting programs use split in a manner analagous to, but
not exactly the same as Gnucash. Xero for example refers to multiple
components of the debit or credit side of a transaction as splits but does
not refer to the debit and credit component themselves as splits which seems
to be similar to what Mike's view of splits. In most cases they describe a
single line entry, being  either a debit or a credit in one account being
split between credits or debits respectively in one or more other ledger
accounts.

The use of "split" in Gnucash to describe any of the components of a
transaction either debit or credit is explained fairly comprehensively in
the Gnucash documentation and the split data structure both reflects and
supports this - it is not separate from it. Although the more common cases
are either 1 debit and several credits or vice versa in a single
transaction, there is no formal accounting restriction to these cases as
long as the split structure describes the transaction adequately.



-----
David Cousens
--
Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html