Thank you for the quick response. I do have some background in accounting and I have actually reviewed both the Tutorial and the full Help manual. So far I am liking QnuCash alot. It's just a matter of getting it to do some of the things I was doing in Quicken.
So, you are pretty close to understanding what I am trying to do. Yes, I am accumulating funds in a separate bank account for a large purchase (let's say property taxes paid once a year). Then when it is time to pay the property tax I need to transfer the funds to my checking account so that I can write the check to the county. At the same time I want to keep track of how much I have transferred for that purpose. For example, maybe I transfer the funds in two transactions and I want a quick way to see if I have transferred enough. In Quicken, my property tax budget was set to zero. When I write the check for the property taxes, say for $1,000, that expense category goes to -$1,000. Then when I transfer the funds, I can add them to that budget line, bringing the property tax expense category back to zero. This way I have basically 3 entries, but I need an even number of entries to follow double-entry accounting rules. Two entries to transfer the funds from one account to another, and then one to show the funds going to the property tax expense. Oh, and I guess two more when I write the check to the county. Thanks. Brad On Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 3:54 PM Stan Brown <the_stan_br...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > > > On 2022-04-22 14:37, Brad wrote: > > My question is regarding transfer of funds from one account to > > another. I want to transfer funds from one account to another, but I > > also want to track the transfer amount against an expense account so I > > can keep track separately of how much I have transferred for different > > reasons. > > Welcome to GnuCash, Brad! There's a bit of a learning curve coming from > Quicken or most other software, because in GnuCash you're doing > double-entry bookkeeping, and most of the details are visible to you. > Have you looked at the Tutorial and Concepts Guide (in the Help menu) > yet, to help you with that learning curve? > > > By "transfer funds from one account to another", do you mean transfer > from one bank account (or cash, money market, etc) to another? Is this a > matter of segregating funds that you expect to spend for a large future > expense, such as a vacation or a new furnace? I'm going to assume both > of those are yes, but if I've guessed wrong please follow up with more > details and perhaps an example of what you're trying to do. > > > > By the way, this isn't really a GnuCash problem, but an accounting > problem. Your chart of accounts should be structured to let you > aggregate information in the ways that you want. It would be no > different if you were keeping our books in a big ledger with pen and ink. > > > > If you have some sort of bank account in which you're accumulating funds > against a large future expense, you'd probably want to name that account > in GnuCash as "Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation" or similar. when you > transfer money from your regular everyday bank account, your transaction > would look like this: > > Debit: Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation > > Credit:Assets:Banks:Regular Checking > > > > As for tracking against expenses, no expense is created by this account > transfer. Why? Because even though you may presently intend to use these > funds for a particular future expense, you haven't actually spent them > yet, and you could change your mind before you do. > > When you start spending out of the vacation account, _that's_ when you > have an expense, and your transactions would look like this: > > Debit: Expenses:Vacations > > Credit:Assets:Banks:Savings for Vacation > > > > -- > > Stan Brown > > Tehachapi, CA, USA > > https://BrownMath.com > _______________________________________________ > 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.
