Marcus,
Are you absolutely certain you are allowed to tack those items on to the
cost basis? There may be tax implications there.
Just because you are a 'regular person' doesn't mean you don't have to
keep accurate books, especially if you have to file tax/legal documents
based on the figures from those books.
You should get professional advice on this topic. (this list is not the
place for it)
Otherwise, the *how* part we can help with. Christopher's example shows
one way of how to craft the transactions.
If you aren't allowed to include some items in the cost basis, but you
want to see 'net profit' on the entire sale, you might have to craft a
creative report to do so. (Which is not terribly difficult. It could be
a simple matter of deciding the right basic report, then selecting the
limited proper accounts.)
Regards,
Adrien
On 9/2/20 10:14 AM, Marcus Winston wrote:
Well, yes, it isn't necessarily a gnucash question. But pen and ink are
a bit cumbersome, and so I use gnucash.
Let me illustrate, perhaps it will help to identify whether I'm
fundamentally doing it wrong, or just have the wrong accounts.
In the assets:fixed assets:house account, I have (I'm making up numbers
to make things simple):
purchase price of house: +$100,000, balance $100,000
costs to purchase: +$1000, balance $101,000
costs to sell: +$2000, balance $102,000
capital gains: $20,000, balance $122,000
What I'm attempting to do is see the cost or value of the house (or,
that's what I thought it would do) in the assets:fixed assets:house
account. The purchase price is, of course, fine. The costs to purchase
add to the basis, which is what I want to do in order to easily
see/calculate (eventually) capital gains (for tax-related purposes). I
add the selling costs before capital gains because, when I add the
capital gains, then I get to the actual selling price of the house,
which is convenient. It might be wrong from an accounting perspective,
but I'm just a "regular person", not an accountant. I'm trying to figure
out how to use GnuCash to track all this stuff. What I see in the other
accounts tells me I am probably doing it wrong. The "costs to purchase"
account is an expense. But that account has a -$1000 balance, and the
"costs to sell" account (also under Expenses) has a -$2000 balance. The
capital gains is the only thing that's right, because that's an income
account.
The fundamental question is, should I be trying to use the assets:fixed
assets:house account to track this stuff? What I see in there has me
thinking that account tracks my actual costs, but when I add the capital
gains, it appears to reflect the value of the house, not the cost.
Hence, my original question: is the "house" account intended to track
the value, or the cost, of the house?
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