Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 23:32, Adrien Monteleone < adrien.montele...@lusfiber.net> wrote: > Chris & Michael have both offered sound advice. > > I'll add towards your question of individual item tracking, simply > create sub-accounts under Assets:Fixed Assets for each one, and the > parent Fixed Assets should be empty. > > And no, they don't belong under Equity, they are Assets. The other side > of those transactions goes to Equity. (and then to Expenses for later > Depreciation as Chris noted) > > Regards, > Adrien > That would require a *lot* of accounts, but I guess it makes it blindingly obvious what the items are. I was hoping to try to automate the depreciation with the Scheduled Transactions in GnuCash. I've not used them yet, but I assume that it would be much more tricky if things are in many different accounts. But maybe I am wrong. For the purposes of submitting to Companies House, I only need the total of fixed assets - no breakdown is necessary. If the company was inspected, I assume that inspectors would want to see a breakdown. What would you do for transactions that have already been written off? I was tempted to add those, as the company has been going for 8 years, so whether I add 8 years of assets or 5 does not make much difference - am extra 55 items. Would it be sensible to create a vendor in GnuCash called "Written off" and let all things that are written off be purchased from "Written Off"? I don't really want to enter a new vendor for everything purchased years ago, and already written off. That would mean filling in the names and addresses of 55 more vendors, which would be a bit too time-consuming for my liking. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 at 16:27, Michael or Penny Novack < stepbystepf...@comcast.net> wrote: > On 1/16/2023 7:29 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: > > Apologies if this is too much an accounting question, but I'm stuck, and > am > > trying to work out how GnuCash will handle this. > > It is accounting, as opposed to gnucash, but I will help. But please do > note that perhaps more basis in double entry accounting needed than > just the tutorial if doing for a business. > > Thank you. I do have a couple of books on accounting, but admit to not reading them in full. I thought this was an equity issue, so read the sections about that, and was not convinced that using equity was correct. > > OK, I will describe what you SHOULD have done and how to get from where > you are to there. > > Ideally under fixed assets you have sub accounts, perhaps first by > acquisition year and under that for the individual things (or group of > same type). All of these accounts should have two sub accounts, one for > basis (cost of acquisition) and one for depreciation taken, the > difference being the current net book value. Note that USUALLY > depreciation is adjusted annually, as you are not required to do > monthly, AND this is to your advantage if/when any are disposed of (will > decrease any gain and increase any loss if you are allowed to use as net > value remaining that of the previous year end) > Thank you. I'm surprised the business accounts in GnuCash don't have anything resembling this. I realise the accounts are supposed to be tweaked, but this is *significantly* different to the business accounts in Gnucash. Maybe they should be altered to have 5-10 years, and some items that people are likely to buy. > > Getting there from where you are should not require you changing > anything in equity. You would just be "transferring" from your initial > structure of fixed assets to this new one. The "credit side" is account > in the old structure as you debit into the new structure. Thus, you can > rename (for now) you existing account "fixed assets" (in which nothing > broken down to something like "xfixed assets" and create your new fixed > assets tree with all the accounts in it zero. You then populate the new > tree using transactions that put in the values using the old structure > (single account) as the other side of these transactions. When you are > all done, the remaining balance in xfixed assets should be zero and you > can HIDE it. > Interesting. It's actually tempting to put *all *the assets the company has ever purchased, including those written off. It means adding 55 more assets, which is not a huge number. Although not strictly accurate, it would not seem unreasonable to write them off after 5 years in one go, rather than each year, given their net value is zero. If one writes of X in one year, Y in 4 subsequent years, and Z in another year, it does not seem unreasonable to write off X + 4 Y + Z in one go, if the result is the same - the net value is zero. However, although entering 55 new transactions would not be too time-consuming, it would if I had to set up 55 new vendors for items that have no value. As I remarked in another email, I wonder if buying from a vendor called "Written Off" or something similar would be sensible. A vendor report of Written Off would be interesting reading, despite it has no significance. I do have information on the vendors these things are purchased from, and need to keep them for 7-year. But I don't want the hassle of importing every transaction into GnuCash for 7-years. Each year as you depreciate (part of end of fiscal year processing) the > other side of the transaction will be an account under expenses named > "depreciation of fixed assets. You could set up to do monthly but WHY? > (what benefit do you gain vs what does this cost you). Remember, > depreciation is an expense but does not represent any money flowing in > or out. The money went out when you acquired the fixed asset (but you > weren't allowed to treat that as an expense at the time). > I thought monthly might work better with trying to automate what will be a tedious process. The GnuCash Scheduled Transactions could possibly be useful there. > Michael D Novack > I don't think I will bother with that. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On 17 January 2023 at 16:11, Dr. David Kirkby said: [...] > I thought monthly might work better with trying to automate what will be a > tedious process. The GnuCash Scheduled Transactions could possibly be > useful there. While you could use SXs, given that you (presumably) know exactly what the depreciation schedule is for each item, you could equally well enter all the future amounts now. It's arguably simpler than setting up the SXs. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On 1/17/23 10:00 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: That would require a *lot* of accounts, but I guess it makes it blindingly obvious what the items are. I was hoping to try to automate the depreciation with the Scheduled Transactions in GnuCash. I've not used them yet, but I assume that it would be much more tricky if things are in many different accounts. But maybe I am wrong. For the purposes of submitting to Companies House, I only need the total of fixed assets - no breakdown is necessary. If the company was inspected, I assume that inspectors would want to see a breakdown. Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to track the items' values & depreciation separately. By all means, otherwise lump them in one account. (you can of course make separate transactions for each item, which would allow you to run Transaction Reports filtered on each item if needed) What would you do for transactions that have already been written off? I was tempted to add those, as the company has been going for 8 years, so whether I add 8 years of assets or 5 does not make much difference - am extra 55 items. I don't see why there would be any need to. If they are already zero, they don't need to enter the book at all as far as I can tell. Would it be sensible to create a vendor in GnuCash called "Written off" and let all things that are written off be purchased from "Written Off"? I don't really want to enter a new vendor for everything purchased years ago, and already written off. That would mean filling in the names and addresses of 55 more vendors, which would be a bit too time-consuming for my liking. These were purchased long ago and you're just carrying forward their remaining value. This should be no different than any other Opening Balance transactions. Just do something similar to the example transactions in Chris' reply. As he noted, if you want to record the original price, do that as an Opening Balance, then with the same date, make another transaction reflecting the currently accumulated depreciation. The end result would be the present value as of the date you opened the GnuCash book. Then continue to depreciate as instructed by your accountant. None of this involves Vendors or Bills. Regards, Adrien ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Crash on account delete
Adrien Monteleone posted in reply to Xe Roy > The lost transactions were in other accounts. > I assume that when the program crashed, I lost everything since the last automatic save. Highly likely. Investigate your auto-save interval in the meantime. Maybe a shorter one will help, or else: I'm curious if the gnucash log file would not have helped in this case. It records (entered) transactions since the last save so it doesn't rely on the automatic save interval. I've only used this capability once and it worked very well. The tutorial says, In case you exit GnuCash inadvertently, possibly due to a power outage or a system wide crash, it is possible to recover most of your work since the last time you saved your GnuCash file using this log file. This is the procedure: 1. Open the last saved GnuCash file. 2. Go to File → Import → Replay GnuCash .log file and select the one .log file with the same date as the saved file you just opened. Make sure that you picked the right .log file, or you will possibly wreak havoc in your accounts. Log replaying will recover any transaction affecting the balance entered since the last save, including those created from scheduled transactions and business features (invoices, bills, etc.). FWIW. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On Tue, 17 Jan 2023 17:47:13 - "Fred Bone" wrote: > While you could use SXs, given that you (presumably) know exactly > what the depreciation schedule is for each item, you could equally > well enter all the future amounts now. It's arguably simpler than > setting up the SXs. +1 As every item can belong on a different depreciation schedule I do them all after purchase until value zero, then I am not trying to work out which percentage or any other variable in the future. I just note my method so that the accountant can check I was choosing the correct rate. Liz ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On Tue, 17 Jan 2023 at 18:58, Adrien Monteleone < adrien.montele...@lusfiber.net> wrote: > > Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to track the items' values & > depreciation separately. By all means, otherwise lump them in one > account. (you can of course make separate transactions for each item, > which would allow you to run Transaction Reports filtered on each item > if needed) > I might do that. > > > What would you do for transactions that have already been written off? I > > was tempted to add those, as the company has been going for 8 years, so > > whether I add 8 years of assets or 5 does not make much difference - am > > extra 55 items. > > I don't see why there would be any need to. If they are already zero, > they don't need to enter the book at all as far as I can tell. Although written off, it might possibly be of some use to be able to look back over the years and see what was bought. If something had been purchased 4 years ago, would you bother recording the value each year, or just that when the accounts were submitted? I guess that’s probably a personal preference. I think nearly everything of mine is written off after 5 years. I think some companies might write electronic test equipment off over a longer period, but virtually all of mine is purchased used, and often when the manufacturer considers it obsolete. > > Then continue to depreciate as instructed by your accountant. None of > this involves Vendors or Bills. Okay. > > > > Regards, > Adrien Thank you for the help. I didn’t get anything done with my accounts today, due to other more pressing issues like dispatching items to customers, and attending to my dog who has a bad paw. Dave > -- Dr. David Kirkby, Kirkby Microwave Ltd, drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/ Telephone 01621-680100./ +44 1621 680100 Registered in England & Wales, company number 08914892. Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 6DT, United Kingdom ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
Dave, Whether your purchases are second hand or not is irrelevant to their depreciation as assets in your business (that is unless your tax authority has a rule stating otherwise). The depreciation rules and rates are set by your tax authority and they usually have a schedule which sets out what purchases can be depreciated and at what rate and which can be expensed to your business immediately at purchase (there is usually a threshold value). When you depreciate an asset each depreciation event is a write off of part the value of the asset to the appropriate expense account (credit to asset account- debit to expense account). It is completely written off when its book value as an asset reaches zero. It may still function and be useful to your business beyond that time however. Most tax authorities will also allow a pool of low value assets to which you can add new low value asset purchases and the pool is depreciated as a whole - depnds very much on jurisdictional rules. If you want to record your history of capital purchases you would need to construct this from the records for each year in your books for that year- a separate management exercise and proper ERP software would do this for you but it records and maintains a lot beyond the accounting information to do so. It is common to use an account structure for depreciating assets in which a placeholder account for the particular asset has a sub account which is debited for the original purchase price and a second sub account or contra account in which the depreciation events for that asset are recorded by crediting the asset's depreciation account and debiting the depreciation expense account for the amount of the depreciation. I.e. Asset:Particular Asset Asset:Particular Asset:Purchase Value Asset:Particular Asset:Depreciation - contr account to record depreciation To record an existing item which is partially depreciated already when setting up the books you would credit this account for the accumulated depreciation to the date of the start of your new books and debit an Equity->Opening Balances account (or sub account) for accumulated depreciation and you would debit the Asset:Purchase Price value by the amount of the original purchase price and credit the Equity:Opening Balances account for that amount. This will allow you to carry forward existing depreciating assets into a new set of books Dealing with pooled assets will strongly depend on your jurisdictional rules as does depreciation in general. David Cousens. On Tue, 2023-01-17 at 22:29 +, Dr. David Kirkby wrote: > On Tue, 17 Jan 2023 at 18:58, Adrien Monteleone < > adrien.montele...@lusfiber.net> wrote: > > > > > Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to track the items' values & > > depreciation separately. By all means, otherwise lump them in one > > account. (you can of course make separate transactions for each item, > > which would allow you to run Transaction Reports filtered on each item > > if needed) > > > > I might do that. > > > > > > What would you do for transactions that have already been written off? I > > > was tempted to add those, as the company has been going for 8 years, so > > > whether I add 8 years of assets or 5 does not make much difference - am > > > extra 55 items. > > > > I don't see why there would be any need to. If they are already zero, > > they don't need to enter the book at all as far as I can tell. > > > Although written off, it might possibly be of some use to be able to look > back over the years and see what was bought. > > If something had been purchased 4 years ago, would you bother recording the > value each year, or just that when the accounts were submitted? I guess > that’s probably a personal preference. > > I think nearly everything of mine is written off after 5 years. I think > some companies might write electronic test equipment off over a longer > period, but virtually all of mine is purchased used, and often when the > manufacturer considers it obsolete. > > > > > Then continue to depreciate as instructed by your accountant. None of > > this involves Vendors or Bills. > > > Okay. > > > > > > > > > Regards, > > Adrien > > > Thank you for the help. I didn’t get anything done with my accounts today, > due to other more pressing issues like dispatching items to customers, and > attending to my dog who has a bad paw. > > Dave > > > -- > Dr. David Kirkby, > Kirkby Microwave Ltd, > drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk > https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/ > Telephone 01621-680100./ +44 1621 680100 > > Registered in England & Wales, company number 08914892. > Registered office: > Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 6DT, United > Kingdom > ___ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > - > Please reme
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On 2023-01-17 15:12, David Cousens wrote: > When you depreciate an asset each depreciation event is a write off of part > the > value of the asset to the appropriate expense account (credit to asset > account- > debit to expense account). It is completely written off when its book value as > an asset reaches zero For "reaches zero" read "reaches its salvage value". For some assets, salvage value is nil or as close as makes no matter; for others, vehicles for example, it can be substantial. And as you observed, the rules are most likely set by the tax authority(ies). 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 - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
On 2023-01-17 13:53, Liz Dodd wrote: > On Tue, 17 Jan 2023 17:47:13 - > "Fred Bone" wrote: > >> While you could use SXs, given that you (presumably) know exactly >> what the depreciation schedule is for each item, you could equally >> well enter all the future amounts now. It's arguably simpler than >> setting up the SXs. > > +1 > As every item can belong on a different depreciation schedule I do them > all after purchase until value zero, then I am not trying > to work out which percentage or any other variable in the future. I > just note my method so that the accountant can check I was choosing the > correct rate. +1 to both If I recall correctly, the OP said that he doesn't need to submit depreciation for individual assets to the authorities, only an aggregate. If that's correct, I would consider a spreadsheet, which will be faster than entering transactions. 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 - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Is it reasonable to have sub-accounts under Equity:Fixed Assets?
Maybe I misunderstood, I thought you wanted to track the items' values & depreciation separately. By all means, otherwise lump them in one account. (you can of course make separate transactions for each item, which would allow you to run Transaction Reports filtered on each item if needed) Personally, I would make the decision to group by year (all acquired in the same year) but if large items likely to be disposed of separately, might want to have an own account. Mind for one of my organizations would be things like tractors, zero turn mowers, trailers, equipment sheds, etc. What would you do for transactions that have already been written off? I was tempted to add those, as the company has been going for 8 years, so whether I add 8 years of assets or 5 does not make much difference - am extra 55 items. You could put in just "fixed assets 20xx" and not bother to break down to separate zero net. But ... did you not have depreciation in those years you might have to justify in an audit? They are allowed to go back what, seven? Mind my practical experience with small non-profits with almost zero chance of being audited. Fill out, but did not submit the 990-EZ as below the filing threshold (just the 990-N "we still exist") Would it be sensible to create a vendor in GnuCash called "Written off" and let all things that are written off be purchased from "Written Off"? I don't really want to enter a new vendor for everything purchased years ago, and already written off. That would mean filling in the names and addresses of 55 more vendors, which would be a bit too time-consuming for my liking. These were purchased long ago and you're just carrying forward their remaining value. This should be no different than any other Opening Balance transactions. Sorry, not understanding this part of it at all, Vendor data? Assumptions here about how acquired are a separate issue. Just do something similar to the example transactions in Chris' reply. As he noted, if you want to record the original price, do that as an Opening Balance, then with the same date, make another transaction reflecting the currently accumulated depreciation. The end result would be the present value as of the date you opened the GnuCash book. You do not have do by wizard. I'd put the back ones up by transaction, especially where net zero. But even if not, for each fixed asset that has its own account, debit basis sub account, credit depreciation taken sub account, and any difference (net value) to equity. The point here as adding these where no remaining net value does not affect equity. Michael D Novack ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
