[GNC] Adding A Business Activity (and integrating with old)

[Eric H. Bowen]

I've been using GnuCash for personal expenses and for a home-based hobby 
business for the past several years now. I'm about to add another 
business activity which will be more serious (I'm self-publishing a 
book). I'm planning to open a separate business banking account for this 
activity and I want to use an entirely separate GnuCash book to keep 
track of income and expenses. Note: This will be a sole proprietorship 
(at least for now) as is my current hobby business.

My question is: How do I integrate this with my current GnuCash 
register? It will be more than a year before I generate any 
(significant) income, even if things go well, so there's going to be a 
lot of crossover and funds transferred from my personal accounts, both 
cash and credit. There are also other items, such as telephone and 
Internet service, which can/should be expensed across both activities. 
I'm also wanting to track investment and net equity in this activity in 
the event that I eventually sell out to an established publisher or else 
formally incorporate the business.

I can/will speak with the accountant that I'm using for his 
recommendations, but he's completely unfamiliar with GnuCash; when I 
mentioned it his reaction was, "What...?" So I want to see how this can 
and should be done under the GnuCash interface.