Re: [GNC] Large Negative Account Total
Usually, income accounts and expense accounts are placed in different top level hierarchies (Income and Expenses, respectively). Rearranging the accounts to segregate these would be a first step to gaining some clarity. Original Message From: Jim DeLaHunt Sent: Tue Jun 08 17:23:55 EDT 2021 To: gnucash-user@gnucash.org Subject: Re: [GNC] Large Negative Account Total Jack: On 2021-06-08 14:04, Jack Frillman via gnucash-user wrote: > …The parent account "Investment Misc" is an expense account and is > marked as a place holder account.… > …In my account tabs the "Investment Misc" parent account shows a > negative amount. (-$70 K range) … > > Questions: > + What can I do to get the large negative amount for the Investment > Misc parent account not to be negative? Off the top of my head, I will guess that it is a sign that your investments are successful. Think about the signs of an expense-type account. You spend money, money goes out, the transaction has a positive sign. You get a refund, money comes in, the transaction has a negative sign. You get lots of refunds, you have a large credit in your expense-type account, you have a negative balance. The parent account "Investment Misc" is a expense-type account. If the total of all transactions in its child accounts adds up to money coming in, then the "Investment Misc" account ought to show a negative balance, right? It's a good thing! You have money! Someone who knows accounting theory could probably explain this in terms of credits and debits to Equity and Assets. I think I have heard that Expense and Income, and positive and negative signs, are a layer of ease of use on top of these fundamentals. An experiment to try would be to redesignate "Investment Misc" as an Income-type account. That might flip the sign of the account total. > …I didn't what to go willy-nilly changing things in fear of really > messing things up. Remember, every time you quit GnuCash, it makes a backup of your book file. If you want to try an experiment, you can: 1. Quit GnuCash. 2. Make a copy of the book file 3. Start GnuCash. 4. Try your experiment. 5. See if you like the results of the experiment. 6. If you do, keep using the new book. If you do not, then quit Gnucash, delete the most recent copy of your book file, and replace it with the copy you saved. Then restart GnuCash. Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Large Negative Account Total
Jack, GnuCash has by default, top level accounts for Assets, Liabilities, Income, Expanses and Liabilities. These are also the names of account types. All accounts of account type Assets should be somewhere under the top level Asset account and likewise for accounts of each other account type. This is necessary for the correct summation of the accounts in the generated reports and perhaps also may be necessary for the accounting rules which are built into GnuCash's coding to work correctly. It is likely your large negative balance results from mixing the account sub-types. Most of the accounting rules are enforced at the transaction level in terms of the sum of debits and credits being zero, and only being able to select certain account types in some cases. AFAIK the structure of GnuCash does not work in general with a general placeholder accounts with sub- accounts which are of different types. It may ,but it is unlikely the reporting structure will and balance sheets and similar reports are likely to be incorrect. A structure which will work better with the reporting system and in-built accounting rules would be to have an Investment Misc placeholder under each of the top level accounts. This has come up in the discussions a number of times usually with regard to a user operating a number of business activities where they need to have separate information on each activity for management purposes. It is even more the case that this will cause problems with the business features in particular with accounts payable and receivable Assets:Investments Misc:...subaccounts for each investment or investment type as appropriate Liabilities:Investments Misc: ... appropriate sub accounts for your needs Equity:... Less necessary to have the substructure here but it can help in defining where your wealth is held. Income:Investements Misc: Income:Investements Misc:Interest Income:Investements Misc:Dividends Income:Investements Misc:LT Gains Income:Investements Misc:ST Gains Expenses:Investements Misc:Fees A Expenses:Investements Misc:Fees B Expenses:Fees Then if you want to generate a report only about Investments Misc you would select these placeholders and their sub accounts in each of the top level categories in the report options. The above approach is generally used in standard accounting practice. Accountants also sort assets and liabilities into categories like current accounts and non-current accounts, the difference being that entries in the current accounts would usually expected to be settled within a single accounting period/financial year whereas non-current accounts deal with items which are generally held and used and consumed over several accounting periods. -- Sent from: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/GnuCash-User-f1415819.html ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Large Negative Account Total
Jack: On 2021-06-08 14:04, Jack Frillman via gnucash-user wrote: …The parent account "Investment Misc" is an expense account and is marked as a place holder account.… …In my account tabs the "Investment Misc" parent account shows a negative amount. (-$70 K range) … Questions: + What can I do to get the large negative amount for the Investment Misc parent account not to be negative? Off the top of my head, I will guess that it is a sign that your investments are successful. Think about the signs of an expense-type account. You spend money, money goes out, the transaction has a positive sign. You get a refund, money comes in, the transaction has a negative sign. You get lots of refunds, you have a large credit in your expense-type account, you have a negative balance. The parent account "Investment Misc" is a expense-type account. If the total of all transactions in its child accounts adds up to money coming in, then the "Investment Misc" account ought to show a negative balance, right? It's a good thing! You have money! Someone who knows accounting theory could probably explain this in terms of credits and debits to Equity and Assets. I think I have heard that Expense and Income, and positive and negative signs, are a layer of ease of use on top of these fundamentals. An experiment to try would be to redesignate "Investment Misc" as an Income-type account. That might flip the sign of the account total. …I didn't what to go willy-nilly changing things in fear of really messing things up. Remember, every time you quit GnuCash, it makes a backup of your book file. If you want to try an experiment, you can: 1. Quit GnuCash. 2. Make a copy of the book file 3. Start GnuCash. 4. Try your experiment. 5. See if you like the results of the experiment. 6. If you do, keep using the new book. If you do not, then quit Gnucash, delete the most recent copy of your book file, and replace it with the copy you saved. Then restart GnuCash. Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
[GNC] Large Negative Account Total
I have been using GNC for a few months now for my personal finances and I'm trying to understand some it's behavior. I'm no accountant and I'm sure I'm not following strict accounting rules. Again I'm using it only for my personal finances and overall I am satisfied with what I have set up. So the only changes I would make from here on I would consider tweeks. I have the following account structure: Investment Misc Expenses Fees A Fees B Income Interest Dividends LT Gains ST Gains The parent account "Investment Misc" is an expense account and is marked as a place holder account. The sub accounts, "Expenses" and "Income", are expense or income accounts and it's obvious which is which. They are also marked as a place holder accounts. So the only accounts that have any transactions are the sub accounts to the "Expenses" and "Income" accounts. The vast majority of the transactions are made as split transactions from other accounts. Note: Account names have been disguised in my example. In my account tabs the "Investment Misc" parent account shows a negative amount. (-$70 K range) All of these accounts go back to 2003 and have never been reconciled. (Stop your screaming please..) Questions: + What can I do to get the large negative amount for the Investment Misc parent account not to be negative? + Does it figure into the NET Assets that appear on the bottom of the GNU main window? A couple of things I thought about trying. + Changing the Investment Misc parent account to a bank account. + Reconciled the sub accounts. I didn't what to go willy-nilly changing things in fear of really messing things up. Hope this all made sense. Thanks. -- Old Unix programmers never die, they just mv to /dev/null - Anonymous ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
