[GNC] envelope method, equity sub-accounts, cash vs. hybrid vs. accrual accounting

[Stan Brown]

On 2020-08-09 17:02, Marilyn Graves Kimple via gnucash-user wrote:
>  Sounds promising. It seems to me if I posted a check, for example, directly to a "tithe payable" liability account I would not need a separate tithe expense account. 

You do if you want to know easily how much you've tithed. The expense
account will rise steadily throughout the year (or whatever accounting
period you use), but the liability account will repeatedly rise, then
fall back to zero when you write the check. Yes, the information is in
the liability account, but you'd have to do manual addition to get the
total amount tithed.

There's another, less obvious but more fundamental reason. When you make
a credit to that liability account because you've recognized the need to
tithe a certain amount, where is the corresponding debit? There _must_
be one, and the only logical place is an expense account.

When you have income, you will debit 10% of that to an expense account
called Charity (or perhaps a sub-account under charity), and credit
_either_ Assets:Cash and Banks if you write the check immediately, _or_
Liabilities:Tithes payable to (institution name) if you're going to
write the check later.

When you make a payment that was deferred, debit the liability and
credit Assets:Cash and Banks.

>From a lot of the things you've said, I suspect that you're very new to
double-entry bookkeeping. GnuCash absolutely requires you to understand
double-entry concepts, or you'll liable to tangle yourself up. I
strongly urge you to work through the GC tutorial as a way of getting
acclimated. Or you could google for "double-entry bookkeeping" -- I just
did, and the first few entries look helpful.

-- 
Regards,
Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com
https://OakRoadSystems.com