[GNC] Don't get this at all

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

On Tue, February 1, 2022 2:46 am, Don Robertson wrote:
> 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.

Of course not.  Bills are for AP.  Going and buying a box of paperclips
isn't AP, it's more like "petty cash".

> 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.

GnuCash cannot know, without you telling it, how much sales tax is on a
receipt.  For example, I shop at Costco and have a total bill of $123.45. 
When I look at the printed receipt, some items are taxed at rate A, some
items are taxed at rate B, and some items are not taxed at all.  It's all
based on what I buy.

There is no automated way I can get GnuCash to auto-compute the amount of
tax on the $123.45 total.  I have to enter it manually.

The same is true on an imported transaction.  There is no way to know
exactly how much tax was involved without looking at the receipt.

> 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.

No, you don't.  GnuCash keeps a running tally for you.  So in your case,
because you're in a tax-included area, you would enter the split
transaction as:

Total amount         $100
Tax                           100 * 5 / 23

After you enter the total and go to the next line, GnuCash will put "100"
in the debit column.  Just change that to the tax amount, and when you go
to the next line Gnucash will automatically compute the remainder for you.
 So all you need to do is tell it the account (well, and description).

> 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?

If you just download your data from the bank you will never catch bank
errors.  And yes, banks make errors.. And yes, I have CAUGHT bank errors
by not importing transactions.

How *I* personally work is that when I get home I pull my receipts out of
my pocket and enter them into GnuCash.  Then at the end of the month when
I get my bank statement I run through the reconcile process to ensure it
all balances out.  On the other hand, I don't track my tax.

Another way to work is to hand-enter transactions first, then import to
find "missing" transactions.  That is some additional work because you
will need to match the import to existing transactions so you don't get
duplicates.

Another way is to just import everything, but then you are at the mercy of
what the bank sends you, which certainly does not contain sufficient
information for ANY kind of split-transaction separation.

Note that this isn't just about taxes.  Going back to my Costco bill,
sometimes I go and buy Food, Beer, Wine, and batteries.  I have specific
accounts for Expenses:Beer, Expenses:Wine, Expenses:Home Goods, and
Expenses:Groceries.  There is NO WAY to automate the split of a bill
without manually going through the receipt and manually splitting it up.

No matter how good computers get, they are not going to be mind readers.

I suppose one could attempt to use a combination of OCR and ML techniques
to figure it out, but this is a volunteer project and I suspect that would
be a LOT of work.  Indeed, there are companies that get paid to do that
kind of thing (e.g. Expensify).

GnuCash does not strive to be all things for all people.  But it is the
best tool for most people.  If you're not one of those, that's okay.

Have a great day!  Happy Accounting.

-derek

> 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
>
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-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant