[GNC] help to set up equity sub-accounts opening balances

Michael or Penny Novack stepbystepfarm at comcast.net
Wed Aug 5 17:56:43 EDT 2020


Here is a case where a little but of the history of double entry 
bookkeeping might help you.

Originally (hundreds of years ago) there was just "assets", 
"liabilities", and "equity". The other side of the transaction for money 
coming in or going out was either "liabilities" or "equity". This had 
the advantage of immediately being able to see "net worth: << the 
balance of equity" >> but no way of seeing how items of income or 
expense might be grouped".

The the TEMPORARY account types of "income" and "expense"  were 
introduced. These are actually of fundamental type "equity". As 
transactions that were items of income or items of expense came in, 
these accounts were used for the other side of the transaction. With 
suitable tree structure for income and expense accounts, it was possible 
to see what the totals of a particular income or expense were, say an 
expense "rent", for example.

At the end of the accounting period these were closed into a special 
account usually called "[profit and loss" (fundamental type equity) and 
whatever amount was needed to balance this to zero (a net profit or a 
net loss) was entered here and in equity  itself. We don't have t do his 
with gnucash, which can produce for us a "profit and loss" report 
without "closing the books"

It sounds like (I'm guessing) is that you want to immediately put 
"tithe" transactions into equity as opposed to them first being in an 
"expense" type account. WHY? Why THERE (under equity) rather than first 
under "expense". Again my guess, but you don't want to consider them 
like your other expenses and have been deceived by the term "expense". 
Just make up your own word for "expenses not tithe" and "tithe" and make 
those both children of the top level "expense". Now you know the word 
you chose for the account "expenses not tithe" is what other people call 
"expense".

Michael D Novack




On 8/5/2020 5:14 PM, Marilyn Graves Kimple via gnucash-user wrote:
>   Thanks-- but my problem is that I do not treat items from these equity accounts as expenses at all. In my former program it was called a "fund" account and I could move funds in and out of the equity accounts without affecting my monthly expenses. It was like an assets account but of course it just represented a designated portion of my assets. Since I cannot assign an opening balance to part of my equity account I am not sure this is something I can now do.
> For example, I write a check for a donation, credit my checking account and directly debit my tithe (equity) account. It does not show up as a monthly expense, although I transfer funds each month to the tithe (equity) fund by debiting what I am (possibly incorrectly) calling my accruals (expense) account. I divide up any profit/loss at the end of the month directly to my equity sub-accounts as credits, so my income always zeros out my expenses at the end of the month.
> I would sure like to figure out a way to do that in GnuCash. If I just treated my tithe, etc. accounts as expenses I do not see how I could keep a running balance.  Maybe I will just have to do something different.
> Best regards, mgk
>   
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 10:35:32 -0500
> From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net>
> To: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: [GNC] help to set up equity sub-accounts opening balances
> Message-ID: <rgejk5$f3s$1 at ciao.gmane.io>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> While you can make any account structure you want, there's no need to do
> so just for reporting purposes. Reports can show expenses (or anything
> else) monthly, yearly, for just a few days, or one day only if you like.
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
> On 8/4/20 10:07 AM, Marilyn Graves Kimple via gnucash-user wrote:
>> I have used double-entry bookkeeping although I am not trained. In the past I have used what I called 'fund' accounts as sub-accounts for my equity account: home maintenance, tithe, and emergency savings, for example. I divide my 'profits' each month and accrue them through an expense account to accounts which are part of my total equity.
>> The object is to keep a running total for expenses which are typically annual rather than a month-by-month total. Can I do this with GnuCash? I think I really need to do this.
>> Setting up my accounts initially I tried setting up sub-accounts under the parent Equity, and then under the Equity sub-account Opening Balances, and it only allows me to transfer to Open Balances in each case. The funds in my assets/liabilities account are not transferable 1 to 1 to one of these other accounts.
>> I may have to change the way I do things, but I would really appreciate help with this.? mgk
>    
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There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.



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