[GNC] Formatting the Register header?

[Adrien Monteleone]

A transaction isn’t limited to only two splits, so there is no need to do ‘2 things’ each time. You can just make one transaction. With auto-fill or Duplicate Transaction you’re just going to be adjusting dates, check #s and maybe amounts. (and any notes/memos like “February Donation” or whatever you might want to add for yourself that might need to change)

The accounts to use are a little messier.

Ideally, you want to model real-world transactions as much as possible. This would be a case where you alter that due to wanting to track the pledge.

Here’s where a bit of gymnastics with your Chart of Accounts comes in.

The pledge is not an Accrued Expense (a liability account) because you don’t yet owe it.

It is not a Pre-paid Expense (an asset account) because you haven’t paid it.

It isn’t yet a regular Expense, and certainly not Income.

Since it is at least a promise to pay, Liability is the best fit.

You can have sub-accounts of Liabilities:Accounts Payable, or you can create other independent liability accounts. (and even an ‘Other Accounts Payable’ if needed)

I would think the clearer option here would be to use another top-level account called Pledges. (of ’type’ liability)

This allows for sub-accounts for each specific ‘xyz' (if needed) and keeps them entirely separate from your real liabilities, including your real AP.

The disadvantage to not putting them under AP is they won’t roll up to show what you ’think you owe’ if that is important to you. You’d still have to do a little math on the side. (You could make it Liabilities:Pledges if you like, but I think it is cleaner to keep Pledges as top-level since it is a virtual account just for tracking purposes)

You’ll need some way to start the pledge. Sticking with the idea of keeping virtual stuff separate, I’d say create one more account, Equity:Pledges, so your first transaction will look like:

Dr. Equity:Pledges
Cr. Pledges:xyz

Now that you’re set up, the individual transactions would look like:

Dr. Expenses:Charity
Dr. Pledges:xyz
Cr. Assets:Checking
Cr. Equity:Pledges

This moves money from Checking to Expenses, and reduces the pledge as well as partially reverses the opening balance Equity:Pledges entry.

When you have finished your pledge for the year, Equity:Pledges will be zero, the liability Pledges/xyz account(s) will be zero, Expenses:Charity will reflect actual donations, and your Checking account will have been reduced accordingly.

If at the end of the year you didn’t meet your pledge, you can carry it over and pledge the difference next year, (or the whole amount in addition) or just make one adjusting entry to zero the remainder of the pledge in the liability and equity tracking accounts.

As for using Scheduled Transactions, I’d suggest setting it up to remind you and then you can fire/review/edit it when you want. Since it would remove money from Checking you probably don’t want it to auto-create unless you’ve also set up the pledge for auto-draft.

You could alternatively set a Scheduled Transaction for just the virtual tracking part to auto-fire that you can edit/delete later if needed, and handle the actual payments separately. (as a reminder Scheduled Transaction, or using auto-fill or Duplicate)

Regards,
Adrien


> On Jan 15, 2020 w3d15, at 10:53 AM, David Klassen <drklassen67 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thank you for your response.  The mechanics was what I was trying to wrap
> my head around.  Because, yes, for tax purposes I want to show that I'm
> paying a charity expense.  But I also didn't want to have to do two things
> every time I wrote a check but I couldn't see any way around it.  I guess
> you're just confirming that thought.
> 
> As for the scheduled transaction methods, for "adjust date/amount"
> would that include deleting it entirely?  I guess, at some level I could
> just let it go and then delete the entry once it's fired if I really did
> miss that week.
> -- 
> David R. Klassen