[GNC] two instances on different books

[Brook Milligan]

> On Aug 14, 2024, at 9:58 AM, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) <stan+gc at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> On 2024-08-14 08:35, Brook Milligan via gnucash-user wrote:
>> I have a situation in which I have to manage a pair of books, one from the perspective of each side of some of the transactions.  An example would be if I am managing books for both a company and a customer, but in my case the two entities are much more closely coupled than suggested by that example.  Because some (many) of the transactions must be entered in both books yet refer to the same activity, I was thinking that having both open at once would allow immediate checking that transactions match, simply by looking from one window to the other.
> 
> If these two entities are all that "closely coupled", why have them in
> separate books? If they're in the same book, it is much easier to make
> sure that both sides of a transaction between them are entered correctly.
> 
> The paragraph below is just off the top of my head. The subject of two
> entities in one book has been discussed here before, and others' ideas
> on that are probably better than mine.
> 
> You can set up a single chart of accounts in one book, with some sort of
> unique short tag in each account name to show which entity it belongs
> to. (XX and YY are possible choices, since they are certain never to
> occur in account names in English.) You would create and save report
> configurations that select only the Entity 1 tag or only the Entity 2
> tag. Or you could create two top-level accounts, Entity 1 and Entity 2,
> with Entity 1 Assets, Entity 1 Liabilities, and so on under Entity 1,
> and similarly (but not necessarily all the same subaccounts) under Entity 2.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I have already been doing something like that, but ran into problems handling the transactions consistently.

Mainly, that was because I was not aware that I could create new top level accounts to differentiate the entities; I appreciate knowing that is possible.  This, I think, will solve all the issues I can think of now.

Nevertheless, if anyone has other suggestions, I would greatly appreciate knowing.

Thanks a lot for your help.  Once again, this list is a great resource.

Cheers,
Brook