[GNC] How to convert between currency and assets and record change of value

Nathan Falco anasteso1454 at hotmail.com
Thu May 19 18:11:59 EDT 2022


I need to set up an account structure to show the flow of transactions for the following scenario.

I use money in a checking account to purchase a physical item. I sell the item for more than I paid for it. I put the money back into the checking account.

I imagine I could record the purchase merely as an expense and record the sale merely as income?
But I would like to show the cost and the income related to each specific item I sell. So I imagine another way I could do it would be to convert the money used to pay for the purchase into an asset, and then convert it back into money when I complete a sale. I hope to be able to show that as the value of the checking account decreases the value of the asset account increases and vice versa. What kind of transaction would show the increase of value? Should I just add a split to the record of the sale and label it income? Because I think that would only capture the net. I would want the record to show that money received from the sale would be counted as income. I also would want to show that any cost related to selling the item was an expense.

Please reply with which method is the best suggested method. Also please include a dummy account structure that shows the basic classifications that I should use. Thank you.


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