[GNC] Question about transfers

Stan Brown the_stan_brown at fastmail.fm
Fri Apr 22 17:53:45 EDT 2022


On 2022-04-22 14:37, Brad wrote:
> My question is regarding transfer of funds from one account to
> another.  I want to transfer funds from one account to another, but I
> also want to track the transfer amount against an expense account so I
> can keep track separately of how much I have transferred for different
> reasons.

Welcome to GnuCash, Brad! There's a bit of a learning curve coming from
Quicken or most other software, because in GnuCash you're doing
double-entry bookkeeping, and most of the details are visible to you.
Have you looked at the Tutorial and Concepts Guide (in the Help menu)
yet, to help you with that learning curve?


By "transfer funds from one account to another", do you mean transfer
from one bank account (or cash, money market, etc) to another? Is this a
matter of segregating funds that you expect to spend for a large future
expense, such as a vacation or a new furnace? I'm going to assume both
of those are yes, but if I've guessed wrong please follow up with more
details and perhaps an example of what you're trying to do.



By the way, this isn't really a GnuCash problem, but an accounting
problem. Your chart of accounts should be structured to let you
aggregate information in the ways that you want. It would be no
different if you were keeping our books in a big ledger with pen and ink.



If you have some sort of bank account in which you're accumulating funds
against a large future expense, you'd probably want to name that account
in GnuCash as "Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation" or similar. when you
transfer money from your regular everyday bank account, your transaction
would look like this:

Debit: Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation

Credit:Assets:Banks:Regular Checking



As for tracking against expenses, no expense is created by this account
transfer. Why? Because even though you may presently intend to use these
funds for a particular future expense, you haven't actually spent them
yet, and you could change your mind before you do.

When you start spending out of the vacation account, _that's_ when you
have an expense, and your transactions would look like this:

Debit: Expenses:Vacations

Credit:Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation



-- 

Stan Brown

Tehachapi, CA, USA

https://BrownMath.com


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list