Dear Zack, Thanks so much for providing some explanation on structure. I was just looking for this as I dont know how to structure my accounts properly. My colleague tells me to give all receipts to the accountant/auditor and let him/her figure it out(but i feel its better that I do it). My business is about to finish its first year and I need to have my accounts sorted. Your transaction example is very helpful. Appreciate it. Thanks Kevin
On Thursday, March 12, 2015 at 12:59:59 AM UTC+8, zdw wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 11:41 AM, Rick F <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > I'm not an accountant, but the general format for a ledger is usually > > Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Income and Expenses. Customer invoices > would > > typically be under Assets:Accounts Receivable and supplier invoices > would be > > under Liabilities:Accounts Payable. > > > > Assuming you're using ledger for a U.S. business, take a look at > Schedule C, > > since that's likely what you're going to have to fill out on a regular > basis > > from your ledger. My expense categories, for example, match the > categories > > on lines 18-27. My revenue categories come from lines 1-4. > > I endorse this method as well - makes tax time much easier. > > As a structure, I have a top level "BusinessName" category for the > business, as well as top level "Customers" and "Suppliers" categories. > > Someone paying for work performed service would look like this: > > 2015-01-01 Fixed Widget > BusinessName:Assets:AccountsReceivable:Labor $100 > Customers:CustomerName:AccountsPayable -$100 > > Them paying the bill would look like this - it's a 4-part transaction > so that everything balances on both ends - I wrote about this > "Transfer pattern" from a while ago: > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/ledger-cli/K7EgJQuEQ_M/WGzdFhtuqwIJ > > 2015-01-02 Payment for Work Performed, Check #1234 > BusinessName:Transfer:ChecksUncashed $100 > BusinessName:Assets:AccountsReceivable:Labor -$100 > Customers:CustomerName:Equity -$100 > Customers:CustomerName:AccountsPayable $100 > > Then when the check gets deposited: > > 2015-01-03 Deposit to Checking > BusinessName:Assets:CheckingAccount $100 > BusinessName:Transfer:ChecksUncashed -$100 > > This way, at the end, the customer's balance should be zero, and you > can reconcile your deposits easily. > > > Making each individual invoice its own account is very GnuCash, but I > prefer > > to keep my account hierarchy pretty clean and instead use tags to keep > track > > of individual invoices. I think it makes closing out the books at the > end > > of the year simpler. I'm not going to say everyone agrees with me on > that > > one, though. > > I agree with this. You end up with account overload, and have > problems if someone makes a payment for multiple transactions with one > transaction. > > - Zack > -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
