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
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