I make purchases for which I owe state Use Tax on. It's important for me to record the Use Tax liability at the time it becomes a liability, but only record it as an expense at the time that I pay it.
I have several accounts for this, but the important ones are: * "Future Expense(A/P):MI Use Tax", a top-level Accounts Payable account. * "Expenses:MI Use Tax" * "Liabilities:MI Use Tax" When I make a purchase that I owe use tax on, I make a split transaction: * decrease an asset account by the amount I paid, and increase the expense account by the amount I paid (not including the unpaid use tax). * increase the "Liabilities:MI Use Tax" and increase "Future Expense(A/P):MI Use Tax" In the next year when I remit the Use Tax to my state, I create another split transaction for the amount I pay in use tax: * decrease whatever asset account, and decrease "Liabilities:MI Use Tax" * decrease "Future Expense(A/P):MI Use Tax", and increase "Expenses:MI Use Tax". This method allows me to keep the Use Tax that I pay recorded in the proper year - I can't record it as an expense at the time I buy the item, because I haven't paid that portion of it yet, and I don't want to have to remember that come next tax season. I am not using the default "Liabilities:Accounts Payable" account because it would negate "Liabilities:MI Use Tax", and would always look like I have a zero tax liability which would be incorrect. So this setup seems to work, but I'm unsure about the GnuCash documentation which says: "Transactions involving an Accounts Payable account should not be added, changed or deleted in any way other than by using post/unpost bill/invoice/voucher or process payment" I don't use the payment system (yet), but why is it such a problem to manually enter A/P transactions? Is it really that important that I use the bill/payment system for these transactions? And once I do so, can I safely split them afterward? Thank you _______________________________________________ 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.