Ken, Welcome to Gnucash!
If you’re going to file only one return for yourself and not for each business separately, it is likely best to keep everything in one file. Others may recommend other setups, but for me, each separate entity gets its own book. If the entities aren’t really separate but just pass-throughs, then they don’t get their own book. Certainly, ask for a CPA’s opinion on this with regard to any nuances for your specific circumstance and jurisdiction. First off, I’d re-label the “Income” top account to “Revenue” as it’s more business oriented. Then create separate sub-accounts for each business and for personal income. For each business, create the necessary revenue sub-accounts as you want to track them. (for example, by category or type of sales for each. I have more than one service I offer so I have separate revenue accounts to track how much work I earn for each.) For personal, consider creating income accounts based on how you get paid from each business. (Draw, salary, dividends, etc.) Also don’t forget to keep the Gifts Received and other items (Misc, Interest income, etc.) under the Personal set of revenue accounts. Your CPA might have other recommendations, but generally, if you don’t segregate funds and just spend for yourself whatever is available, that’s likely consider an Owner’s Draw in most cases. You will likely also have to create separation for expenses, and possibly some assets and liabilities.(but if they are pass-throughs, each business probably doesn’t own assets and you might likely be personally responsible for any debt) There are two basic paths - separate account trees for each business, or sub-accounts under every relevant account for each business. It’s up to you. When you create your P&L for each entity, just select the relevant accounts. (and as just noted, if these are pass-throughs, likely the assets & liabilities all belong to you, so you only need one Balance Sheet) With respect to taxes, look at the tax report options under the Edit menu. You’ll have to arrange this for your particular situation. (the accounts need to be created first) Concerning project based analysis, that one is a bit tough. Gnucash does offer the ability to create ‘jobs’ for both customers and vendors, however the feature is severely limited. You can only have one job per vendor per customer for chargeback purposes. Frankly, it fits a very narrow use case. Most projects involve multiple vendors. And, a job for a vendor isn’t necessarily the same actual job for the customer. They might have the same name, but those are two separate ‘jobs’ in the system. (the feature doesn’t have an ‘entity’ called, “jobs” that is independently managed or reported on, instead, a job is just a tag added to both customers and vendors) There also is no way to tag manual entries as part of a job. Some here on the list have some creative ways of working around this using sub-accounts or the memo lines of transactions and some fiddling with the transaction report, but more than likely, you’ll still have to export some data to a spreadsheet or other software to get a good picture for job-costing/profit type analysis. Regards, Adrien > On Mar 1, 2018, at 11:55 AM, Ken G. Brown <kbr...@mac.com> wrote: > > Just getting set up on GNUcash for the first time and would like some > recommendations. > > I have two separate proprietorship type business ventures that I want to > track separately and that both get rolled up into my personal income taxes > that I also want to use GNUcash for e.g. medical, house expenses, utilities > etc. Within the businesses, I would also like to keep certain projects > separate in order to easily see and report on project details. A portion of > my utilities and house expenses would get expensed to the businesses because > of home office space. > > What is the best way to handle this tracking via one set of accounts? Or is > it best to keep separate data files for each of personal, business #1, > business #2? > > Thx for any tips or insight. > Ken G. Brown > _______________________________________________ > 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.
