Not sure all of that was in chronological order, so I'm still a little
fuzzy, but maybe this will help you:
Income should be its own account (of type 'Income') in GnuCash. You can
of course have sub accounts here to track various sources.
When you earn (or receive if on a cash-basis) then the transaction
should look like this:
Dr. Assets
Cr. Income
What asset account you use depends on the form of what you received. If
direct deposit, then Checking would be fine. If a paper check, one
practice is to temporarily use an 'Undeposited Funds' account until the
deposit (which may not be the entirety of the check) is made. If cash,
well, then 'Cash' is the account used.
When you incur (or pay on a cash-basis) an expense, the transaction
should look like:
Dr. Expenses
Cr. Assets
Of course, the expense account(s) used depend on the nature of the
actual expense. The asset account(s) depend on the actual source of the
funds. If you buy with a credit card then the transaction would look
like so:
Dr. Expenses
Cr. Liabilities (with a sub-account for the particular card)
What you seem to be describing is a savings plan and/or a segregation of
funds for some purpose other than regular expenses. While you can employ
equity accounts here, using an asset account is probably more in-line
with the real world events. (the money is still yours as long as it
doesn't represent a liability)
I wasn't quite clear if this is 'virtual' earmarking of funds or
real-world separate accounts. (like a savings account, or as with some
checking accounts, a special designation amount)
If a real-world account at a financial institution, and you are moving
funds from one account to another, then reflect that move with a
transaction. Both accounts will be asset accounts.
If this is just for your informational purposes to see how much you've
set aside, (but the money doesn't *yet* leave the physical checking
account) then create a sub-account of checking and do a transfer between
the parent and sub.
This way, the total of the parent account can show the actual real-world
balance (if desired) and you can see how much is in various earmarked
sub-accounts.
Now, when you spend those earmarked funds for real, say by donating to a
charity, then that would be a regular expense transaction as above. You
have two options here:
1. First, transfer the funds back to the parent, then enter the
gift/charity expense transaction from the parent. (how it happened in
the real world)
2. Make the expense transaction as coming from the sub-account.
I would prefer #1 for my future self, because I find modeling the
real-world is easier to investigate down the road if I find
discrepancies. But #2 is one less transaction to enter. Either method
would retain tracking of the balance remaining (if any) that is still
earmarked.
Now, if you also need to track how much you've *pledged* to donate, that
is another layer of complexity. Doable, but yes, a bit of extra work.
Finally, since you are eventually spending the earmarked funds, your
income and expenses will balance to zero. (with some temporal
discrepancies depending on when you spend those funds vs. when you
receive them.)
Regards,
Adrien
On 8/5/20 4:14 PM, Marilyn Graves Kimple via gnucash-user wrote:
Thanks-- but my problem is that I do not treat items from these equity accounts as
expenses at all. In my former program it was called a "fund" account and I
could move funds in and out of the equity accounts without affecting my monthly expenses.
It was like an assets account but of course it just represented a designated portion of
my assets. Since I cannot assign an opening balance to part of my equity account I am not
sure this is something I can now do.
For example, I write a check for a donation, credit my checking account and
directly debit my tithe (equity) account. It does not show up as a monthly
expense, although I transfer funds each month to the tithe (equity) fund by
debiting what I am (possibly incorrectly) calling my accruals (expense)
account. I divide up any profit/loss at the end of the month directly to my
equity sub-accounts as credits, so my income always zeros out my expenses at
the end of the month.
I would sure like to figure out a way to do that in GnuCash. If I just treated
my tithe, etc. accounts as expenses I do not see how I could keep a running
balance. Maybe I will just have to do something different.
_______________________________________________
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.
