[GNC] Don't get this at all

[Don Robertson]

Well, I guess it isn't for me. I think computers should save people 
time. If I need to open my bank page in my browser and copy the 
transactions manually into Gnucash  and make a bill, post it, and pay 
it  for every packet of paperclips .... doesn't work for me.

Or I have to manually split each transaction and work out how much sales 
tax is involved? I wonder if I still have a calculator in a drawer 
somewhere. Or an adding machine? Can you still get the little rolls of 
paper for them? Where I come from, if we go to the store and pay $100, 
we'd have to multiply by 3 and then divide by 23, to get tax of 13.04 on 
a net price of 86.96. The receipt would be emailed and saved into a folder.

Sort of thing that would be easy to program, but I have to type that in 
to get the GST? and I suppose 100 - 100*3/23 to get the net price. Simple.

Last time I had to do accounts, I used to think how much easier it would 
be to be able to just down load the transactions instead of having to 
manually enter everything and calculate the GST. Seems some things 
haven't changed.

Seriously, is this how you are still doing things? Retyping data from 
one system to another?

On 1/02/22 16:15, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, January 31, 2022 8:54 pm, Don Robertson wrote:
>> Hi - I have been looking at Gnucash for a while and would like to use it
>> for my very simple business. But I am just finding it so complicated and
>> counter intuitive I am thinking I might just use a spread sheet. Yes, it
>> is that simple.
>>
>> In the past I have used Quicken and MoneyWorks, so I am not a novice
>> when it comes to double entry book-keeping or to paying sales tax and so
>> forth.
>>
>> So here is an example. I have set up a chart of accounts, and set up our
>> sales tax rates, and two accounts - one for sales tax received and one
>> for sales tax paid.
>>
>> On Sunday, I went to the hardware and bought a cupboard to store our
>> business material in. I have imported the transaction from the bank, and
>> have debited the bank account and credited the appropriate expense
>> account.
>>
>> I just do not see any way to apply sales tax to the transaction. I have
>> looked at the documentation, and it does not seem to me to say anything
>> about this.
>>
>> So okay. I add a bill, add a vendor, post the bill to accounts
>> receivable. I don't want to do this everytime I buy a box of pencils,
>> but fine. Now I do not see any way to say the bill has been paid by the
>> transaction imported earlier. If I hit pay, it adds a new transaction.
>>
>> Pretty much makes importing transactions a waste of time. Worse - it's
>> completely pointless.
>>
>> It seems to me that this is a pretty basic thing to do. Maybe I'm stupid
>> or missing something but I can't see how this is supposed to be done.
> The only time taxes are automatically computed from a Tax Table is via
> Invoices and Bills.  For simple entries, it's easier to just enter the
> amount by hand.
>
> However, you can still record taxes when you enter a transaction. Just
> make a split transaction.  For example, if you go to the store and buy a
> cupboard for $100, and pay 5% tax, your total is $105.  So you would
> credit your payment form (e.g. Liabilities:Credit Card) the full $105, and
> then you would split that and debit Expenses:Cupboard $100 and
> Expenses:Taxes Paid $5.
>
> You can pull these numbers right off the receipt as you enter the
> transaction into GnuCash.
>
> You could also get GnuCash to compute it by typing:  100.00 * 0.05 into
> the debit cell.
>
> Hope this helps!
>
> Happy GnuCashing.
>
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> -derek
>
-- 
Don Robertson
021 294 1452
don at robertson.net.nz