Farmer Question

[Robert Heller]

At Tue, 09 Jan 2018 17:14:00 -0600 "James Meade" <jnmeade at southslope.net> wrote:

> 
> I've used Quicken for years and am considering switching to gnucash mainly  
> because Quicken is going to a subscription pay model and I don't want to  
> be held hostage by it or by an operating system (I always have in the back  
> of my mind to swithc from Windows to Linux).  I know little of  
> accounting.  In reading the manuals, I have a number of questions about  
> setting up the gnucash system.
> 
> 1.  I have several checking accounts and use them all for both personal  
> and business use.  It seems unfeasible to set up two sets of books.   
> Can/how do I separate personal from business in one set of books?
> 
> 2.  I have several credit cards, use them the same way as checking.  How  
> do I set up several credit card sub accounts, e.g., notional names AB  
> Visa, CD Mastercard, EF Visa, etc., and separate purchases for business  
> and personal?
> 
> 3.  I do all my data entry manually and am not going to change.
> 
> 4.  I have several income streams, including farming, flight instruction,  
> writing, custom farming (e.g., mowing or plowing for someone else),  
> military retirement, social security benefits.  Some are business and some  
> are personal.  Any thing to consider when I set them up?

OK, you do things much as I do them, except that I have two sets of
checking/savings accounts, one set mainly personal (a credit union where I 
used to work) and the other mainly business (a set of accounts at a local S&L).
I do have a PayPal account (with a Debit card and PayPal Credit) that I use
for both personal and business.

I have one set of books / one GnuCash file.

I have a "bank" account for each checking account (each checking account has a
"debit" card) and each savings account. I have a "bank" type account for the
PayPal (debit) account. I have a credit card account for my lone general
purpose credit card (at the credit union), for my Care Credit card (used only
for medical expenses not covered by my insurance), and my PayPal Credit. Plus 
a "cash" account for cash in my wallet and a company cash account, mostly used 
when I at something like a trade show selling company merch (mostly novelty 
USB thumb drives).

Then I have "income" accounts for each of my customers (mostly webhosting, but
two regular Linux Admin jobs, and an assorted group of mostly one-time
programming or linux admin jobs). I have an account for my pension (an income
account), and an accounts receivable for my business. Plus a pile of expense
accounts (for various sorts of expenses, both personal and business).

My only "trick" is to use well named accounts (eg use names that concisely
describe the account) and putting meaningful information in the description
field of the transactions. At tax filing time, one can suitable customize the
income & expense and transaction reports to provide just the sort of info you
need to fill in the forms correctly and accuractly.

> 
> As I see it, my main uncertainties are about mixing personal and business  
> and about having a number of different accounts of the same type that are  
> used for both personal and business (i.e., checking and credit cards).
> 
> It occurs to me that if  I have to ask these questions the prospect of  
> using double-entry bookkeeping may be more than I should attempt.  If you  
> think that is the case feel free to say so.  I'm trying to figure out if I  
> want to go this way.  I tried QuickBooks about 8-10 years ago and gave it  
> up after a couple of months.  I have the time and energy to put in, just  
> not sure if I'm smart enough.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jim
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> 
>                                                                                  

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Linux Administration Services
heller at deepsoft.com       -- Webhosting Services