Quicken isn't really an accounting app. Intuit's offering in that space is Quickbooks. That means that how you used Quicken isn't directly transferable to GnuCash. If being able to use a Free Software alternative to Quicken the same way you use Quicken is important to you then have a look at KMyMoney: https://kmymoney.org/ <https://kmymoney.org/>
To accomplish what I think you're trying to do in "real" accounting requires two special accounts: An asset account to collect the money reserved for the payment and a liability account to accumulate the accrual. For your property tax example, suppose you owe 1200 every six month, but you want to record the expense and make a reservation monthly. You'll create two accounts: Assets:Current Assets:Provision for Property Tax and Liabliltues:Current Liabilities:Accrued Property Tax. Every month you'll create a transaction that looks something like: 5/1/2022 Accrued Property Tax Assets:Current Assets:Bank 200.00 Assets:Current Assets:Provision for Property Tax 200.00 Expenses:Tax Expenses:Property Tax 200.00 Liabilities:Current Liabilities:Accrued Property Tax 200.00 Then when you transfer the money to the Tax Collector: 6/1/2022 Pay Property Tax Assets:Current Assets:Provision for Property Tax 200.00 Liabilities:Current Liabilities:Accrued Property Tax 200.00 Regards, John Ralls > On Apr 22, 2022, at 3:24 PM, Brad <gbewing3-...@bewing3.com> wrote: > > 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. _______________________________________________ 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. 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