Re: [GNC] Newbie

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/8/2019 6:47 AM, S. Sliackus wrote:

Hi guys

I am new to GnuCash. I came up with this piece of software by searching
practical solution to couple of my charities and small business.

I have quite mixed feelings about this program, I found some things over
complicated (some invoicing aspects, customer list and search, transactions
split etc etc) some things inconsistent  and some things missing (cash
basis vs accrual basis, transactions print/export from viewing screen etc.
etc.) and some working bad (import of list
 Some of this is misconception. True, you can only use the business 
features like invoicing when on the accrual basis << this perhaps should 
be addressed -- not only do many organizations keep books on the cash 
basis (but would like to be able to produce invoices for members) but 
some businesses by tradition/law use cash >>. But otherwise you can most 
certainly specify either cash or accrual.


And for those asking about setting up books but finding the "templates" 
do not match their needs the solution is simple. Just set up your CoA 
the way you need it or your accountant advises. You do NOT have to use 
any of the templates.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Questions on how best to setup a non-profit account in gnucash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/8/2019 12:24 PM, Larry Wagner wrote:
I would like some comments about how one would set up gnucash for a 
non-profit.


Here are some of the specifics:


What kind of non-profit are you? What do you have to file with what 
jurisdictions?


<< There are non-profits that do not pay taxes, but are not tax 
deductible organizations. The rules are different with what gets filed 
with whom >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] journal entries

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/12/2019 12:45 PM, Clint Chaplin wrote:

This is also similar to NetSuite, which is an on-line double entry
bookkeeping service, and where "journal entries" are a special case
transaction, even though by definition everything is really a journal entry.


It is definitely a terminology confusion.

In the old days, especially with "cash book" accounting*, a "journal 
entry" referred to a transaction that was not affecting any of the cash 
accounts. So mainly corrections and adjustments (example: recording 
depreciation).


It has no real meaning in a "virtual journal" system like gnucash.

Michael D Novack

* A shortcut where there was a special part of the ledger called the 
"cash book" which had the account for cash and a half dozen or so of the 
most affected other accounts. Any transactions that could skipped the 
"enter into the journal first" step and were entered directly in the 
cash book << usually 90+% of transactions could be >> Any transactions 
that affected OTHER accounts were entered the usual way, in the journal 
and then posted to the ledger.


When I did this, I usually reserved a pair of columns in the cash book 
for the journal. For example, using 12 column paper, I could have the 
journal, cash, and the four "most popular" other ledger accounts. Or 
possibly more if only keeping one side here << the "real" ledger had all 
the accounts, even those in the cashbook. At the bottom of each cashbook 
page the totals were posted to the "real account" >>


The reason for using a cashbook was to reduce posting. Transcription 
errors during posting were by far the majority of all errors.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] journal entries

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/13/2019 10:57 AM, Dale Alspach wrote:



The Gnucash documentation could make some general statements about
differences between Gnucash and other accounting software, but it would be
too much to expect specifics about the other software.
Dale
 Gnucash IS ordinary, run of the mill, double entry accounting software 
<< all the double entry apps I have used are also "virtual journal" >> 
There is little to learn for anybody familiar with double entry 
bookkeeping (and that IS standard for accounting, has been for a VERY 
long time)


If you mean "differences from other applications that are NOT standard 
accounting" why should that be necessary. Shouldn't simply saying that 
gnucash is "double entry bookkeeping" enough? The documentation DOES 
make that clear. Not up to gnucash to point out that non-double entry 
isn't standard accounting.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/23/2019 10:59 AM, Wm via gnucash-user wrote:


For example, the price of the meals at meetings is rounded up to the 
nearest pound, and the remainder is earmarked for “Charity Choice”. 
Not all members attend every meeting, and some members skip the meal 
and make a token payment to Charity Choice. There are several such 
income headings to deal with.


Sounds like crap to me.

Think about this: I went to dinner with my mates, said it cost more 
than it did and said the difference was for charity.  Would you 
believe me?


The difficulty is that it must be possible to document each 
individual member’s contributions over the year in order to make a 
Gift Aid claim to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), which 
tops up the members’ contributions by 25%.


OK, it sounds to me like you're being asked to cheat HMRC.  Are you 
prepared to do that? 


You know all that much, both about the charitable components (tax 
deductible, need to be reported separately) of organizations that while 
non-profit (tax exempt) are not "deductible" << for example, a 
"fraternal" society -- what this is >> and specifically what is required 
in the UK?


What was asked for here seemed perfectly above board to me. Besides 
being treasurer of 501(c)3's I also belong to organizations that are not 
deductible BUT do sometimes make charitable donations. In some cases, 
that is a lot of what these organizations do beyond their social 
functions << Lions, Shriners, etc. >>  I do not know how they report 
even here in the US let alone in the UK.


Michael D Novack



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Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/24/2019 11:57 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:


Thanks, Mike.

The club itself keeps its own financial records for running expenses etc. Any 
income arising from charitable activities is passed to a trust which is 
registered as a charity with OSCR (the relevant regulatory authority in 
Scotland). Any donation to this charity from a member (or indeed from any 
member of the public) is eligible for Gift Aid. The treasurer for the last five 
years is a retired banker, and his accounts were all certified by a chartered 
account before being passed on to OSCR so I think the principles have been 
established. What I am trying to do is find the best way of using GC to record 
and report the necessary information.
OK, like I said, I've done stiff like this but don't know YOUR regs and 
seems different so I want clarification.


In addition to knowing the amounts (these extras that are designated as 
charitable donations) you have to report to the government "from whom"? 
Here we would not -- thus at an event, might be stated "event cost $X 
per person, pay at least that much. If people pay more, the extra will 
be given to charity A. The organization would report the amount, but how 
much from each person who did donate extra. Like when at a meeting of an 
organization a motion is raised to donate to some charity by passing 
around a hat.


If it is similar where you are, what is the tracking by member for?

Michael
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Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/24/2019 5:39 PM, Michael Hendry wrote:


This is for the Gift Aid claim. We have to put in an annual claim to the 
taxman, identifying each contributor and his/her total amount donated during 
the year. Many UK charities use this method to boost their income - for 
example, when you pay the National Trust for Scotland the admission fee for one 
of their properties, they’ll ask you if you’re willing for them to make a Gift 
Aid claim and take down enough details to make that claim. You have to have 
enough income to be taxed at the basic rate, and the charity can claim tax back 
at a rate 25% of the admission fee.

I have to account for the income as it is received, and I’d prefer to record 
sufficient detail in GC at that point, rather than run a parallel record on a 
spreadsheet or whatever.

Regards,

Michael

OK, I think I understand now. And it seems straight forward to implement 
in gnucash, though you will an easy way to suppress the detail on most 
reports.


When your organization has money come in for any purpose, that is a 
debit to cash (or some bank account) and a credit to some income 
account. Could be a split to multiple income accounts. Follow so far?


So in your income tree, one item is "donations". Under that you have an 
account for each donor. A FULL "statement of revenues and expenses" << 
gnucash name Income Statement but I gave it the usual title a non-profit 
uses; a for profit says "profit and loss" >> shows the detail (total for 
each donor. But usually you would probably want to suppress that. You 
could try a dummy placeholder (say named "donors") in between donations 
and the individual donor accounts and try hiding that subtree when 
producing the report for the governing board who might want to know the 
total of all donations but not how much from each whom.


Michael

PS: So a typical transaction for an event where person A "rounds up" as 
a donation.

 debit
 cash   X
 credit
 dinner share   X - Y
  donor A  Y

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Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/25/2019 3:25 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:

First (and an important question)
Is your organization om the cash or accrual basis? You should 
always state that. The business features of gnucash only work for 
accrual. And I see that your organization does pledges. Here in the US, 
pledges ARE receivable,but only according to the terms of the pledge << 
thus if a person pledged X a year for five years, only the X for the 
current year due NOW >> So pledge accounting will require extra work 
unless all your pledges are simple, immediate pledges.


But you can easily have a second set of books to keep and report on "by 
member" stuff, and if using the business features, can invoice. Note 
though that  at least in the US "membership dies" are not really 
receivables <organization at any time -- organizational rules about "demits", etc. 
apply only if you want to rejoin>> However many organizations even cash 
basis [prefer being able to send out "statements" (invoices to members)


Notice that I misunderstood.What I was suggesting was if you had to 
supply to the government the CORRECT member name for the donations, not 
just that it had to be SOME member's name. The latter is of course far 
simpler in terms of record keeping << I was picturing the former because 
possibly there were by person limits >>


Michael

PS: I do NOT attempt to get gnucash to produce reports in their final 
form. Easier to export full reports and then copy into a document that 
gets edited to remove extraneous detail, insert annotations, etc.




On 24 Aug 2019, at 23:03, Mike or Penny Novack  
wrote:

On 8/24/2019 5:39 PM, Michael Hendry wrote:


This is for the Gift Aid claim. We have to put in an annual claim to the 
taxman, identifying each contributor and his/her total amount donated during 
the year. Many UK charities use this method to boost their income - for 
example, when you pay the National Trust for Scotland the admission fee for one 
of their properties, they’ll ask you if you’re willing for them to make a Gift 
Aid claim and take down enough details to make that claim. You have to have 
enough income to be taxed at the basic rate, and the charity can claim tax back 
at a rate 25% of the admission fee.

I have to account for the income as it is received, and I’d prefer to record 
sufficient detail in GC at that point, rather than run a parallel record on a 
spreadsheet or whatever.

Regards,

Michael


OK, I think I understand now. And it seems straight forward to implement in 
gnucash, though you will an easy way to suppress the detail on most reports.

When your organization has money come in for any purpose, that is a debit to 
cash (or some bank account) and a credit to some income account. Could be a 
split to multiple income accounts. Follow so far?

So in your income tree, one item is "donations". Under that you have an account for each donor. A FULL "statement of 
revenues and expenses" << gnucash name Income Statement but I gave it the usual title a non-profit uses; a for profit 
says "profit and loss" >> shows the detail (total for each donor. But usually you would probably want to suppress 
that. You could try a dummy placeholder (say named "donors") in between donations and the individual donor accounts and 
try hiding that subtree when producing the report for the governing board who might want to know the total of all donations but not 
how much from each whom.

Michael

PS: So a typical transaction for an event where person A "rounds up" as a 
donation.
 debit
 cash   X
 credit
 dinner share   X - Y
  donor A  Y


It’s actually a little simpler than that, because a nominated cashier collects 
X from each member at the door but only has to pay X - Y to the venue after the 
meal, passing Y to the Charities Account.

We have chosen to label this income “Charity Choice” - two members are selected 
at the end of the year to nominate their favourite charities to receive the 
proceeds.

Thus I have:

Income:Charity Choice:MemberA
Income:Charity Choice:MemberB
etc.

Visiting members from other Rotary Clubs are charged in the same way, and (so 
far) I’ve recorded this income in the parent account (Income:Charity Choice), 
but there might be an argument for accumulating this income in a generic 
non-member child account (Income:Charity Choice:NonMember). We don’t claim Gift 
Aid on the latter.

My difficulty is that we have several other buckets in which we accumulate 
income from members during the year, so I need:

Income:Bucket1:MemberA … MemberN
Income:Bucket2:MemberA … MemberN
etc.

 From time to time during the year I need to report on the total contents of 
each bucket, and once a year I have to report each individual member’s total 
contributions to all buckets. I think that using the Business Features might 
ease these two r

Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/26/2019 6:49 AM, Greg Feneis wrote:

Michael, I use GnuCash for my cash business and don't have any trouble with
it.  I think the only trouble you may have is with report generation.

Kind regards, Greg Feneis
(Pixel 3)

Well yes, it is precisely that, adjustments necessary to convert 
"accrual" to "cash" for reports. Not THAT hard to do for those 
experienced in bookkeeping (the old way) and if doesn't need to be done 
all that often. If quarterly of annually only, I might do it that way.


But a business is different than a club/church/charity  and it is only 
for the latter sort of org that I am willing to help in this way. The 
reason I am suggesting "a second set of books" JUST to send invoices 
(member statements) is that in my experience possibly the majority of 
collections will be "not as billed".


Take a church/synagogue as am example. The "membership dues" might be 
set as X, and perhaps half the congregation sends in that amount. The 
other half, people contact the treasurer (or an abatement committee) and 
say "sorry,we just can't afford that much" and they get an "abatement" 
<< an arrangement to pay what they can >> In other words, the total of 
"receivables" is NEVER going to be close to what comes in.


Would you, as a business, be so casual about "not had to adjust: is HALF 
of you invoices involved adjustment to "bad debt"? << in the 
organizational case, "abated" >>


The point is, the second set of books I am talking about is JUST for 
sending out "statements". You don't necessarily have to record there 
when payments come in unless you want to be able to send out follow-up 
statements. There is an argument for NOT doing it. If "abated amount" is 
put in and statement sent out again (for the lesser amount) that is ALL 
you would get. And of course might not even get that. But if the person 
is told by the treasurer or abatement committee ,"look, pay half you 
can" you MIGHT end up getting more. Usually the board wants to know how 
many (what percentage of our congregation is abated) and how much 
collected from all who are abated (for predicting total membership dues 
for budgeting) but NOT "who is abated and by how much" << that is 
private, confidential >> Note that is you are recording these incoming 
payments into the (real/main) books on cash basis and that is the 
information needed just have to have "membership dues" and under it two 
child accounts "full membership dues" and "abated membership dues".


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Bookkeeping for a club's charity account - use business features?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/27/2019 2:40 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:


I had understood from a recent response from Mike Novack that using an 
accrual-basis system for cash-basis organisation would be wrong.
"Wrong" is the wrong term. I did not say that. I said that adjustments 
might have to be made (the books kept on accrual basis but the reports 
had to reflect cash basis). That calls for more than a little 
bookkeeping experience to do correctly.


Back to the suggestion of not posting invoices immediately, that would 
be correct for memberships/dues (which are not legally receivable) but 
you could post pledges (which are --once a pledge is made the person 
owes that amount to the organization). Not that I only know this true 
for the US.


The other thing mentioned, RESTRICTED donations (the donor has earmarked 
for a set purpose) introduces the need for more record keeping. The 
treasurer has to track when the organization has "earned" that donation 
<< the restriction removed because that amount has been spent for the 
designated purpose >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] 2 Questions About Debit Cards

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/28/2019 5:52 AM, Haim Roman wrote:

I get separate statements for the checking account & debit card.
On the checking account, it just notes that money was transferred to the
debit card.
It's the debit card statement that says to whom I paid.

In addition, sometimes the checking statment notes a *single *transfer to
the debit card that actually corresponds to *multiple *transactions on the
debit card statement.

I live in Israel.  Maybe debit cards work a bit differently in other
countries.


I have a sneaky suspicion that "debit cards" are different in different 
places.


THIS example seems very similar to "petty cash fund" except no need to 
prefund (gets refreshed as needed by a transfer from  the supporting 
account). If that refresh is always after, you COULD treat like a credit 
card that was never used to borrow money << ie: a "30 day net" account >>


BTW -- that IS how Penny and I use our credit cards and also the 
business credit cards of the orgs I keep books for. In other words, 
although on the books as a liability, the balance is always paid in 
full, no interest ever paid, no loan balances left outstanding << though 
of course could show that way at the end of a reporting period >>


As for where to put an Israeli "debit card", could do either as an asset 
or a liability << this is easier to see when you just think debits and 
credits>>I I would decide that by the DATES the bank uses for the 
"refresh" transfer transaction, is that before or after on the statement.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Non-expense, non-income transactions?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/3/2019 3:08 PM, Roderick Anderson wrote:
This might be on the edge between using GnuCash and Accounting 
principals.  Any help or suggestions will be appreciated.


I am the Treasurer for a small 501(c)(3) with all my accounting 
knowledge as OJT.  Nothing formal.


I am looking for suggestions on how to account for cash pulled from 
the checking account to be used for making change for our fund raising 
event and then redeposited into checking. 


Well "petty cash" is traditionally something slightly different <<  
would have its own mini set of books >>


Question: Do you not NOW have a "cash" account? Sometimes called 
"undeposited cash". For example, I do not drive to town every time a 
check arrives for the organization. They might accumulate even for a 
week or two till I get to the bank << it's about a 50 mile round trip >> 
If you do have an undeposited cash account you could use that; after 
all, you are unlikely to be depositing the day of the event.


But "cash box" or "change box" perfectly OK.

Michael D Novack



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Re: [GNC] Thank you

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/4/2019 9:09 AM, Doug wrote:

Thanks Adrien. Every year I need to send my data to my accountant who does not 
(yet) use Gnucash. I did not have any success exporting to .qif files: not sure 
why. (Would not read into Quickbooks)
I thought a spreadsheet might be better way to go.

  This is a new accountant because my last accountant retired (at 85! & still 
runs a farm: tough people these rural folk). Previously I supplied hard copy 
reports because they were old-school.
The new accountant is quite happy for electronic version, but last year I had 
no success with her reading my files.
Just because you might end up printing an exported report does not mean 
you have to send to your accountant as hard copy. Instead of printing 
the file, simply attach it as a document to an email. Your accountant 
does not need access to gnucash to read an exported document << for 
example,  a browser reads html >>


Can YOU read your exported files? What application opened them?

Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Simple Reports

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/9/2019 10:28 AM, mrtibbsabq wrote:

Hi. I have been using GnuCash for awhile now but I cannot see a way to tunnel
down into the data and generate some simple reports. I would like to
generate a report between two dates that show only the expenses for a
specific expense category. That seemed easy to do in MS Money but I am stuck
with GnuCash. Can someone set me on the right path here? Thanks.
Or alternatively, if it is an entire subtree or several subtrees of 
expenses that you want.


Use the "Income Statement" and either:
1) Exclude all the accounts you do not want
or (possibly less work)
2) Run the full report, export, and delete the parts you don't want (the 
possibly less work because this might be vast swaths of the report)


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Assign one payment to multiple invoices (from several customers)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/12/2019 7:40 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:

Um, no, it does not appear regularly.  Indeed, this is the first time in
19 years that someone has asked about paying invoices for multiple
customers with a single payment.

 I would think this situation rare, but not unheard of.

As the customer, I usually take pains NOT to put the vendor into this 
situation. For example, say we are paying for magazine sub renewals for 
our two oldest great grandchildren, I would write a separate check for 
each invoice. But not ALWAYS. Thus when paying excise tax on our cars 
(two tax invoices from the town)  I know that sometimes I have written a 
single check. So we'll take that as an example. What would the town tax 
collector do to enter if using gnucash?


I assume she would use her eyes and brains. See that the total of the 
check matched the total due on both invoices. Then probably enter each 
invoice paid for its proper amount. After all, what would be done if 
there were two checks, but the check numbers had been entered manually 
(as they are with counter checks and/or temporary ones for a new 
account) and by accident the check number duplicated.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] How to manage earmarked funds

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/12/2019 1:49 PM, Fred Frazelle wrote:

Dear sirs:

We are a non-profit and receive contributions.  Every once in a 
while the Assembly sets up a fund for something special, like a Center 
and the believers contribute.  The money in this fund cannot be used 
for anything else.  Since we are just setting this up, we already have 
some money in one of these Funds.  We set the account Center up as a 
liability, since it hasn't been built yet but then the program says 
Imbalance (i really like this feature - you can see immediately that 
something is amiss - lol).  i already have the monetary amount listed 
in one of the Equity/Opening Balances. Obviously i'm not an accountant 
and am trying to wrap my head around this... 


But that you got an "Imbalance" simply means that you did not enter the 
transaction correctly >


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Gnucash not obtaining lock Solved

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/13/2019 1:50 PM, Bob Hammons wrote:

The trouble was Windows Defender in a recent update blocked Gnucash,  Quicken 
and Open Office data directories.
This was in the Ransom ware section
Here is a website that explains how to fix this
..
Wasn't very nice of MS to do this without any notice that these programs would 
be blocked
Thanks again for you help I did learn a little more about Windows but something 
new will pop up I am sure.
 That does not seem to me to be much of an explanation. I don't know 
about Quicken, but with either OpenOffice (I use LibreOffice) or Gnucash 
the "data directories" (the directory in which the data lives AND where 
the lock file will be created) is up to you. Certainly MS didn't block 
"Documents" (the parent directory where LibreOffice documents likely 
placed).


If, what you are referring to are default locations which these 
applications might use IF you failed to specify where your documents 
were to be put that's another matter. I'm not at all sure I would be so 
critical of MS in that case. It is a really bad idea for people to allow 
applications to simply place data wherever so you don't KNOW the 
location. For example, if you don;t know the location, how do you know 
what directories you want copied to your backup device (you DO make 
periodic backups, right?).


Thus, if I Know that ALL such data would be in the "Documents" tree 
(organized by sub directories so you can find things) then you know your 
backup procedure would want to copy "Documents" (and everything in it) 
when making  a backup. In which case you don't need to think of separate 
backup for each application.


When you create a new set of books in gnucash (a new file) the FIRST 
action you should take after opening it should be a "save as" to the 
desired location << say in a directory under documents named "Gucash 
Books" --although there I would have a directory for each set of books 
since I keep several -- that makes it easier to clean out old 
log/session backups for a particular set of books since those, and the 
lock file, will be in the directory where the file is >>


Michael D Novack
PS  when some of us say "directory" that is not different from what 
you know of as a "file folder". We just learned before  it was graphical.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Gnucash not obtaining lock Solved

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/14/2019 5:59 PM, R. Victor Klassen wrote:


Well, actually, yes.

And it makes sense.  They’re trying to protect you from ransomware - software 
that encrypts your stuff and then offers to give you the decryption key if you 
pay up.
The idea is that a known list of applications are allowed to touch files in the 
protected directories, and you can add tru
AH my misunderstanding is because of how described. Coming from the 
mainframe world (my working days) the concept of "authorized" programs 
and directories is quite familiar to me. In that environment there was 
also a level of authorization based on the login of who was running the 
program. Normal security to me. The threat less things like ransom ware 
(full back up daily) than selective changes by a malicious user << which 
would likely be on all generations of backups before being discovered >>


Since I am about to retire this old X200 under 7 replacing with a W541 
under 10 I can see I will have a choice to make. Either add the apps I 
will be installing to the authorized app list or turning the feature off.


We might consider an addition to the documentation for installing 
gnucash under Windows 10 << add to list of authorized apps >>


I think this is in general a good idea on a shared computer. In my case, 
my wife is too non-techie to even think of trying to install something.  
But if we had grandkids living with us? << the great grands are too 
young to mess with computers >>


Michael D Novack


--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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Re: [GNC] Having trouble trying to use Gnucash instead of Aplos

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/15/2019 9:15 AM, Daniel Wieberdink wrote:

I was hoping to transition to Gnucash to track finances for the small
church we belong to. I started by optimistically trying to import about 3
years worth of transactions from Aplos into GC via a CSV file. That didn't
go as smoothly as I hoped.
Let me start by asking an important question. This "Aplos" application 
where you have the last three years data.Is something wrong with it? You 
will no longer have it available? << to view, to produce reports from, 
the existing data >>


Because if THAT is the case, why are you trying to migrate this data to 
your new gnucash books?


In the old days, pen and ink on paper in bound volumes, they used to go 
to "new" books all the time. Close the old books and open new books in 
fresh volumes on a regular basis << what else to do as physical books 
became full >>


You can do the same sort of thing migrating to gnucash. You use your old 
application to produce a Balance Sheet as of the date of migration and 
use this to establish the opening balance of each of the "standing 
accounts". Then when and if you need to refer to old data (stuff before 
this date) you use the old application.  In my experience, such need to 
reference the old data is rare.


That's what I have done every time I migrated an organization  to 
gnucash. I never tried migrating the old data. Perhaps if I had had to 
deal with some fixed assets, I might have handled those differently << 
not just the balance remaining as of of the date of starting the gnucash 
books but the basis and depreciation history --- if you have to deal 
with those I will show you >>


Michael D Novack

PS: I do not ever use "opening balance" instead entering explicit 
opening the books transactions, one for debits and one for credits.

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Re: [GNC] Having trouble trying to use Gnucash instead of Aplos

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/15/2019 7:03 PM, David Carlson wrote:


I think other GnuCash users often resort to spreadsheets or other software
when the GnuCash reports don't meet their needs.

David Carlson


OR additional sets of books (virtual books, etc. )

Using this sort of entity as an example, suppose a church/non-profit 
that keeps its books on the cash basis needs to be able to send out 
membership statements (and track who has paid their dues, etc.). At the 
"price" of additional data entry could have a set of books JUST for that 
purpose (invoice members, record payments, produce reports on 
"outstanding", etc.). Of course when a membership/dues/donation payment 
comes in, would have to be entered there as well as in the main books. 
BUT, that would be true if keeping those side records on spreadsheets, 
etc.  All I am saying is that gnucash CAN be used that way (instead of a 
spreadsheet)


Similarly, an entity with a real "petty cash fund" might use gnucash to 
track that separately with a petty cash book << remember, the person in 
the office handling petty cash might not be accessing the main books. 
Look at a standard accounting text to see how this was usually done << 
how the books, once a month or so, interacted >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Credit Card Format Good?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/15/2019 10:01 PM, Peter West wrote:

. That means that increases in an Asset are debits, while decreases are 
credits; and increases in Liabilities (or Equity) are credits, while decreases 
are debits.

Income increases assets; an increase in an asset is a debit; therefore the 
balancing entry for income must be a credit.
Expenses decrease assets; a decrease in an asset is a credit; therefore the 
balancing entry for expenses must be a debit.

Not necessarily, and that needs to be stressed precisely because this 
began with credit cards.


An income item will increase assets OR decrease liabilities << in either 
case, a debit >>
An expense will decrease assets OR increase liabilities << in either 
case, a credit >>


For example, if you paid an expense with a check, db expense; cr 
checking but if you paid with the credit card would be db expense; cr 
credit card.


Then when you pay against credit card charges might be:
  1) balance paid in full, no interest - db credit card; cr checking
  2) if interest part of that payment a split  db credit card, db 
credit card interest; cr checking
   (you might instead choose to have entered the interest as a 
credit card transaction first)


Michael D Novack

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Re: [GNC] PSD2

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/18/2019 3:42 PM, Fred Bone wrote:



This is likely to be completely incompatible with fetching account data
programatically, given that many seem to think the best approach is a
one-time passcode sent via SMS to your mobile phone after validating your
id and password.

 This seems to becoming more and more common, authentication by a one 
pass-code sent via SMS to a mobile phone. Totally ignoring that SOME of 
us don't have mobile phones because they do not work in our rural 
location << we know from which nearby hilltops one can get a connection, 
but cannot receive where we live >>


SOMETIMES they do allow for an email option (choose instead of mobile 
phone) but not always.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Bank check - debit and credit?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/19/2019 9:20 AM, orn...@tutanota.com wrote:

How does one debit and credit for a bank check when the person/company doesn't 
want to accept a personal check? I usually forgo reality and just record that I 
sent the personal check directly to the individual, but that's not exactly what 
happens.


I think this depends on how fancy you want to be. Perhaps not unrelated 
to how you enter OTHER "check" transactions for which there is no check 
number like automatic payments, one time electronic payments, etc.


IF the money (for purchase  the bank check) came from the checking 
account, I'd probably treat is as a numberless check putting into the 
description column something like "bank check to..." instead of just 
the payee. But if there was going to be a significant delay before the 
bank check/cashiers check was handed over might treat it as an asset << 
it perhaps is NOT likely to be actually used, say necessary to take part 
in bidding, but only used if one wins the auction >>


But I am NOT an accountant. Just quite aware that this is normal 
procedure for certain sorts of transactions.


Michael D Novack


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Re: [GNC] Bank check - debit and credit?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/19/2019 10:35 AM, orn...@tutanota.com wrote:


Let me expand a little. This is for personal use, such as the purchase of artwork or a 
service, so its purpose is not for a business. Recent examples were for repair of a 
vintage fountain pen or a wrist watch. The repairers asked for a bank check, so I wrote a 
check to the bank for cash, the bank then gave me a "bank check," which I sent 
to the repairer.

What are the mechanics of double entry debits and credits? If I write the check 
to the bank do I then have to show income to bring it back in?
 a) If this is frequent, I would probably create an account for 
"negotiable instruments" (or just "bank checks" if that's the only type 
dealt with). Your purchase of one is just an asset transfer transaction. 
When and if used to pay an expense* that transaction would be debit 
expense and credit this asset. The reason I put the asterisk is often 
the bank check is needed to purchase an expensive asset (car, house, art 
work, etc.) so the debit side would be for some fixed asset,not an expense.


b) If you are bringing it back in (never used) that would not be income 
but again an asset transfer transaction. That is actually a fairly 
frequent use of a bank check, needed if taking part in an auction in 
case you are high bidder but otherwise returned to the bank.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Badly formed URL unknown-type

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/20/2019 1:08 PM, Uttam Chakravorty wrote:


  To go back a little, I have become so sure of GnuCash I
have become lazy about taking a milestone backup after every session.  I
have no excuse as we do the books every 3-6 weeks so it was not really
too hard to do.
I'm sure Uttam doesn't need this (now) but everyone else, pay heed. The 
little bits of extra time spent making back-ups of your books will all 
be made up the one time you need a back-up you didn't bother to make. 
ESPECIALLY if you enter stuff in your books only now and then << my 
organizations are all low volume, so it's once a month when I have a 
bank statement to reconcile against >> there is no excuse not to back up 
every time.


Remember, it's not IF you will need a back-up but WHEN.

Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Credit card account with two cards

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/25/2019 12:14 AM, Zacharie Durand wrote:

Hello,

I’m wondering if anyone has dealt with multiple credit cards under a single 
credit card account?

My spouse and I each have a credit card under a single credit card account. We 
make purchases on our separate credit cards. Each month I receive a single bill 
for both cards. The bill separates my purchases and my spouses into two 
separate lists and sum them up.


This is actually a significant issue for the business version of gnucash 
because this is exactly how business/organization credit card account 
work. Authorized individuals have their own cards, and the statement 
shows use by cards, but the total amount shows under the master account 
(and that is the one to which payments are made).


One of the organizations for which I am treasurer has this. 
Unfortunately I am not going to be of much help suggesting how to treat, 
as such low volume I don't bother with downloading from the bank << only 
one of the authorized persons charges "frequently" and even he rarely as 
many as 2-3 transactions/month-- the rest don't average even 2/year >>


Michael D Novack

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Re: [GNC] Credit card account with two cards

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/25/2019 9:49 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:

Nope, this is handled by Employee Expense Vouchers. If you have 
anemployee card, when you enter an expense you can mark it as Cash or 
Card,which dictates whether to reimburse the employee or put it on 
a(corporate) credit card. Multiple employees can "share" the CC account.


You have described YOUR business/organization. I assure you that there 
are others (including one for which I am treasurer) that work the way I 
described. The treasurer (or in a large organization, somebody working 
for the treasurer) would examine the statements to see if expenses 
charged were authorized/reasonable. No "vouchers" involved*. Of course 
can also pay for things with their own funds/cards and submit receipts 
for reimbursement.


The last line in what you said, what do you mean by "share card"? Isn't 
that what we have been talking about? There is a master account (the 
"corporate" account) which has an account number but no cards, and then 
a number of cards for individuals each with an account number but tied 
to the master account. The statement shows a total for the master 
account (items on it would be the totals from each subsidiary account) 
and then each subsidiary account showing its transactions for the period.


But this is NOT just for business. My wife and I have individual 
cards/numbers but these get combined into a master statement giving the 
total  BUT there is also a part that shows each card transaction grouped 
under that card number, the charge transactions on my card completely 
separate from the ones on hers.


Michael D Novack

* We have pre-authorized expenses, above certain amounts needing 
authorization from the exec committee or larger amounts by the entire 
board. As treasurer, on the exec committee, so have seen the discussion/ 
"go ahead" emails. Hasn't yet come up that somebody put an unauthorized 
amount on an organizational credit card. USUALLY when a person will be 
spending more that authorized they would use their own funds/personal 
card and then submit for reimbursement of what was authorized << example 
-- travel/hotel/food but taking along a spouse >>


I should perhaps note that RECEIPTS are required whether putting in for 
reimbursements or not. ideally even when donating the amount. We get 
GRANTS which can be specific as to category of expense for which can be 
used.



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Re: [GNC] Credit card account with two cards

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/25/2019 1:53 PM, Derek Atkins wrote:


which is contrary to your statement that GnuCash cannot do it.


Would you care to specify WHERE you saw that statement you claim is from 
me?


And I believe we are talking about VERY different issues. As I have 
pointed out, not MY problem since all the organizations for which I keep 
books have such low volume I do not download bank statements and try to 
get that data into gnucash. I am simply entering the few transactions 
that exist from the credit card statement > OBVIOUSLY if manually entering 
transactions no limitations from gnucash.


Please refer back to what was originally asked (not by me)

Michael D Novack

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Re: [GNC] Unsplitting a transaction

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/5/2019 3:45 PM, Stephen M. Butler wrote:




If you did that, then you didn't properly remove the other splits.  You
need to go into each cell and manually remove the data, then tab out..
Then use the arrow key to move up and the split will disappear.  Continue
until all the extra splits are gone.


Not a practical "how to do" answer but it might be a good time to 
mention that "how to correct" in general involves the question "how 
formal is your process"?


In the old days, pen and ink on paper,  erroneous transactions were 
never removed. They were offset (enter the reverse transaction) and then 
the correct transaction entered. In other words, preserving an audit 
trail that there was an error that was corrected << the description 
fields would explain/refer to the erroneous transaction >>


THIS PROCESS is still what is done by those of us required to maintain 
formal books. SOME accounting software will require it, not allow 
existing transactions to be deleted/altered. Might be required in some 
jurisdictions. There has been discussion in this forum that gnucash 
being unable to prevent deletion/alteration is a fault << that is, not 
offering this option -- in effect, open source software cannot provide 
this sort of security as those with programming ability could use an 
altered version of the program to defeat it >>


HOWEVER -- most of us using gnucash are not following the formal 
process. WE will simply delete/alter erroneous transactions.


Michael
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Re: [GNC] Unsplitting a transaction

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/6/2019 10:07 AM, Stephen C. Camidge wrote:

For personal use and for most businesses, this would be the appropriate method. 
For larger businesses with EDP Auditors (do they still exist?) and regulations 
with accountability for the how data is maintained, the transactions should be 
locked. However, in that kind of environment, a free program like GNU Cash 
would not likely meet their needs or be permitted. So, it is safe to continue 
not to support that feature.

I will however point out, that for experienced computer professionals 
like myself, even proprietary "locked" systems would not be "locked".


The point I was making about open source programs was that in THAT case 
no great amount of skill/imagination would be required and it would be 
perfectly legal (to make your own version of the program sans lock). 
Only average programming skills of being able to read source code, edit 
it, and recompile.


Do note that large businesses with large DP shops would likely contain 
at least SOME people with the level of experience and imagination 
necessary to "break" into proprietary code << when I was altering 
programs without the source code (programs still in use but lost* source 
code) it was perfectly legal as they were our own proprietary programs >>


Secure systems are not secure from those who maintain their security. A 
proper audit takes this into account.


Michael D Novack

* Once upon a time, the source code of programs lived on decks of cards. 
Decades later (but many decades ago) somebody made all these programs 
members of a library on disk << in the case of where I worked, that 
somebody was me >>  If some of these decks of cards never were never 
handed in to be included in the batches being loaded to disk, the source 
code for those programs would later be impossible to find, cards having 
been thrown out. I had the joy of disassembling the lost puppies and 
rewriting the output of the disassembler into decently human readable 
form so the programs could be maintained/altered (disassembler output is 
gobbly-gook) That something WAS lost usually not discovered until there 
was some need to change it.


It is actually sort of fun, but only if you enjoy hard puzzles.

--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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Re: [GNC] Export files for audit

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/7/2019 9:54 AM, Mike stagl wrote:

This is end of my first year as Treasurer of a PTA, and my first year
using gnucash.

What is the best way to export or print a year's worth of gnucash data
for an auditor to review?

What is the auditor asking for? Is the auditor willing to install 
gnucash (in which case you could send the FILE which is the books and 
the auditor could look at whatever).


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Local one-on-one tutorial help with Gnucash?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/11/2019 8:07 PM, Libby Shaw wrote:

Looking for an experienced Gnucash user in or near Watertown, Massachusetts who 
could provide a few hours of tutorial help with Gnucash.


 Libby,

  I am both an experienced gnucash user and been Treasurer for 
501(c)3's. Unfortunately, at my age, Watertown is a bit too far for me 
to drive a round trip and still expect to get work done (it's 2+ hours 
driving time, and I need breaks so longer elapsed time). However if the 
Berkshires aren't too far for you to come bringing your machine, maybe 
we could work something out. Being retired, usually easy for me to 
schedule things.


  ROFLOL but I am in the process of training somebody to take over 
as Treasurer of my remaining organization as bad practice for it to be 
depending on somebody already in their mid 70's


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] New computer to set up gnucash and migrate from old.

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/16/2019 2:22 AM, rhrosebr wrote:

Just bought a new win 10 computer. Old computer hd unstable. How do I get
gnucash to new computer? Do I install latest version then copy whole
directory and overlay new directory. I'm not seeing anything on migrating
gnu to new computer.
TIA
Randy

 If you are migrating to a new computer you will want to:

1) Install all the applications you are used to using.

2) Migrate over all of your data.

If the data paths to the data will be different, in each case you will 
have to find the data on the new computer. But the point I am making is 
that migrating gnucash (program and data) is likely only a tiny subset 
of the programs and data you will be migrating.


IF the new computer is under the same OS as the old one, only a little 
care will be needed to have the data paths be the same and all data will 
be found where expected. But when not, it may be impossible to have the 
same path.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] New computer to set up gnucash and migrate from old.

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/16/2019 5:41 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

Randy,

If the old computer still runs at all, you can network them together and use 
the Windows User Migration feature. (not certain of the exact name, but that 
term should get you close in a search engine) It will move all of your data and 
settings as part of your user account. (you get to fine tune what it migrates 
as well)

Regards,
Adrien


<< I often leave things out >>

I did not describe this for the simple reason that even if you do not 
make regular backups THIS is a situation where you would want a full 
backup. In other words, when migrating to a new computer you would 
almost always want to copy ALL your user data  to an external device 
(your external backup drive) and then you would copy from that to where 
user data goes on your new computer.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] New computer to set up gnucash and migrate from old.

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/17/2019 12:58 PM, Randy Rosebrock wrote:
Under normal default install where are these files location I need to 
copy from?


On Mon, Jun 17, 2019 at 8:49 AM Mike or Penny Novack 
mailto:stepbystepf...@comcast.net>> wrote:


Since you did not tell us the operating system of the old computer (and 
I do not know for Windows 10) I can't tell you where your user data lives.


Pretty much all modern operating systems (last decade or two) support 
multiple users (multiple SEQUENTIAL users) and each would have his or 
her own data area. Probably something like /users/username/   
(that's the name you log in as)   So if you are doing a full data backup 
for a user, that is the directory (aka "file folder") you would copy 
into something like ../backups/backup20190617 on your backup drive (say 
a large USB drive)


You DO make backups? On some regular basis? Yes?   << remember, it is 
not IF a computer will fail but WHEN? >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] New computer to set up gnucash and migrate from old.

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 6/17/2019 7:29 PM, Randy Rosebrock wrote:
I'll check it out. You would thing gnucash would build in a 
backup/export/import function.


You are slightly misunderstanding the problems because you are thinking 
of gnucash as being used to keep only one set of books. Also, gnucash 
keeps a list of the last four books open and if not otherwise instructed 
will try to open the last that was open.


Many of us who keep multiple sets of books turn that off. We are having 
gnucash start without opening any set of books and then explicitly 
telling it which to open. Particularly after migrating to a new computer 
with different OS, even if you have only one set of books the "last 
open" might not be found << path is different >>


file => open will let you CHOOSE the file (set of books) that you want 
gnucash to open.


Michael D Novack

PS: The issue of preferences/settings IF these are to be different for 
the different sets of books is most easily solved by having them under 
different users (different computer logins). Just because you are one 
human being doesn't mean that your computer knows that.

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Re: [GNC] Balance sheet report period

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/2/2019 4:20 PM, Rich Shepard wrote:
Looking in the Guide the only reference I see to 'balance sheet 
report' is a
brief description. When I prepare the report the only date option I 
see is

the ending date.

Is the start date that of the first entry in GnuCash? Can I produce a
balancve sheet account for only the year-to-date and exclude previous 
years?

Or does that violate accounting practices?

Rich 


The Balance Sheet is a "snapshot" of the books as of a specific date, 
not an interval. There is neither a start date nor an end date; just an 
"as of" date. It includes explicitly all of the standing account 
balances  (account types asset, liability, and equity). The accounts 
types income and expense are not shown because they are actually 
temporary accounts of fundamental type equity. Their NET will appear as 
the unrealized gain or loss in the Balance Sheet.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Balance sheet report period

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/3/2019 9:44 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:

Or, you could download 3.6 and test the new experimental multi date balance
sheets :-)

THAT, however, has nothing to do with this question. The "multi date 
balance sheet" report ISN'T a balance sheet with multiple dates but a 
report that shows multiple balance sheets each for some different date.


It is STANDARD for certain financial reports to show two balance sheet 
reports in parallel. For example, a balance sheet at the start of an 
interval (end of previous period) and at the end plus the Income 
statement (aka P&L aka Revenue statement) for the interval. Following 
advice of the accountants, I put this together OUTSIDE of gnucash using  
raw reports exported from gnucash. I suppose lots of folks here would 
have preferred I had coded this << a retired software professional, I 
could have >> but the accountants were right, I am ALWAYS having to do 
some editing.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Change a batch of transactions from income to Expense

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Morayweb,
 Gnucash, well any method of double entry bookkeeping can do so 
much more for you. What you have described is much as double entry was 
many centuries ago. You can (and should) set up the accounts so that you 
can get much more information about the finances of the camp. Imagine 
(with what you have) the camp board asked a question like "how much was 
spent on food?" or "what did we get in donations?".


 I am going to suggest something, that we work off-line/on-line so 
that what I would do for you (I am experienced with non-profit 
bookkeeping as well as a retired systems/business analyst) will be most 
helpful to both you AND other inexperienced people trying to set up 
books for a non-profit/club/etc.


First << working off-line, direct email >> we will work together 
formulating the question you SHOULD have asked*. Something along the 
lines of "this is how our scout camp works; how do I set up books for 
it?". When we have THAT worked out you would submit that to the list << 
sort of starting this process over >> to get an immediate response from 
me << we would already have that worked out off-line >> what your CoA 
(chart of accounts; the hierarchy/tree of accounts) might look like for 
the camp operation you asked about. That could also describe the reports 
you would likely run to extract information about the finances of the camp.


If you are game, let me know.

Michael D Novack

* Helping a client with this is one of the things a business analyst 
does. The client knows the answers, but needs to be prompted. If the 
"business operation" isn't descried correctly, then the "systems" (in 
this case the books) won't be correct.



On 7/4/2019 8:29 AM, morayweb wrote:

Hi sorry for all this hastle.
I am trying to setup a simple money in and out system for a non profit scout
group.
We have a Bank account with all money in it.

If we were holding a camp say, then Camp out would be the money spent on
food and expenses for the camp and Camp In would be Money coming in from the
scouts going on the camp.  The same would go for events.

Building and maintenance etc is just money out.  We also have a few other
things coming in like gift aid or grants.

So basically a 2 column cash book.
Hope this is a bit better.
Thanks



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Re: [GNC] Change a batch of transactions from income to Expense

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/4/2019 10:06 AM, morayweb wrote:

That sound brilliant.  What would be the costs for that.  I am in Scotland
just thinking of time diference.
Thank you.

No charge (I am long retired from doing systems/business analysis for a 
living).  Time difference matters less when it is exchange of emails.


Think about a description of the camp financial activities, what's 
coming in (from what sources) and what's going out (for what expenses). 
Send your "first draft" of that directly to my email address, I'll send 
you back questions, and we'll work at getting the description finalized.


THAT will then go to the whole list in the form of "this is what my 
organization looks like; how do I set up gnucash books for it?" << there 
is no good reason for the whole list to have to watch the intermediate 
steps -- it'd be OK if that were just a couple of back and forth's but 
we don't know that yet >>


Michael
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Re: [GNC] multiple accounts

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/17/2019 3:42 PM, Bob Sisk wrote:
I tried setting up another set of books, then when I tried to open my 
original set it would not allow me to open it, it kept opening the 
second set. I had to uninstall Gnucash then open my backup date to 
open the original set of books. ?


Misunderstanding. You meant to say you didn't KNOW how to do it, and 
instead of asking for help, assumed that reinstalling gnucash and backup 
data was the solution.


a) IF you are going to have several sets of books (I do) and if it is 
pretty random which you would want to open (not particularly more likely 
the last one open) you probably should use the -nofile parameter. We can 
explain how you set that up. Then, when you start gnucash it won't open  
any but give you a list of the last four and let you choose. BUT, you 
could still use file=>open to open a different one not on that list.


b) If you have two (or more) but only one is much used you could simply 
start gnucash. It will open that set of books BUT you can use file=>open 
to open another instead.


Michael D Novack



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Re: [GNC] multiple accounts

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/18/2019 3:27 AM, David Cousens wrote:

Bob

An additional point. At least on Linux you can have multiple instances of
GnuCash running open at different files at the same time.

David

But a word of warning. You might think you could save time by having 
more than one set of books open at a time. But I guarantee you, ONE 
mistake where you have accidentally entered a transaction into the wrong 
set of books will take you more time to find/solve/fix than all the time 
you have saved to that point.


Michael D Novack



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Re: [GNC] Non-profit accounts - reporting of restricted funds and of future commitments

[Mike or Penny Novack]

First of all, in theory appropriate spreadsheets obviously COULD be 
used. Remember,in the old days there was just pen and ink on paper. 
Still legal, and so would be spreadsheets with columns just like the old 
style accounting paper had. I do NOT recommend this because:
1) You would need to be experienced with old fashioned pen and ink 
on paper bookkeeping. I could do it, because I learned back when that 
was all that there was.
2) It was error prone, especially in the posting process 
(transcription errors). Not easy to find/correct unless you know all the 
tricks.


A modern system like gnucash is essentially "autoposting" (post directly 
into the ledger, the journal is virtual) and the computer will not make 
arithmetic mistakes. Also, it can easily produce the usual reports.


I am a retired senior systems and business analyst and treasurer of some 
501(c)3's  << US tax exempt non-profits). You have permission to email 
me directly and we would exchange questions back and forth till it is 
clear how your books should be set up. To start:


1) What is your jurisdiction? Do you know the line items needed for the 
reports to gov't etc.?
2) You have choices how to handle restricted funds. For example, 
something long term like a "building fund" you would probably want to 
handle as a liability. Short term restricted donations << likely/certain 
able to use for intended purpose within the accounting period maybe less 
formally. Frequency of transactions going OUT from the restriction many 
also play a roll. IN ANY CASE --- you will almost certainly be entering 
two transactions for each << one for the actual money; one to reflect 
removal of restriction << could be done with a single two way split 
transaction but leave that till experienced.
3) Do you have fixed assets? I was thinking not until I saw 
"building".If so, your organizations needs to decide on a de minimis 
amount << even though for something long lasting, too minor to treat as 
a fixed asset) and the time period over which fixed assets are depreciated.


Michael D Novack




On 7/20/2019 9:07 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:

On Sat, 20 Jul 2019 at 12:28, Michael Hendry 
wrote:


Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Current
Assets/Current Assets/Charity/Charity Savings

I’d like to be able to report on both accounts as if they were a single
account (the spreadsheet simply treated these as a single account and
ignored the transfers between the accounts) but a request for a report on
the parent (Assets/Current Assets/Charity) in a Balance Sheet report gives
a zero result.


Are you using the default Balance Sheet? You'll need to choose, from
Display / Parent account balances or Parent balance subtotals, a suitable
choice. Hint: don't choose subtotals in both.



B. Some charitable receipts are earmarked as they are received - e.g.

Income/Earmarked Funds/Polio Plus
Income/Earmarked Funds/Water Account

and I’d like a similar composite report on the children of
Income/Earmarked Funds, preferably on the same report as in A. above, to
guide members on what is actually available for them to spend.


Is this the best way of recording earmarked funds? I'd imagine recording
from the donor, wish #polioplus in description, would be more suitable?
Anyway, Transaction Report, originating from Earmarked Funds account,
select children.



C. Sometimes a decision is made to commit funds already collected but in a
situation where the money won’t be spent immediately - e.g. a building
project.

This is obviously similar to the Earmarked Funds in B., but I’m not sure
how best to handle it.

I could create a transaction between the Charity Current Account with
today’s date and Expenses/Charity/Committed Funds as the destination
account.


This is similar to budgeting? If this internal allocation of funds isn't to
be used anywhere else, would an asset account were created as a child of
Asset/CurrentAssets/Charity called 'Restricted Funds', and transferred to
Asset/EarmarkedFunds/Projects be better, and check the parent-account
balance to determine 'unallocated funds' ? I don't know. What *could* be
implemented, is the concept of 'virtual transactions' whereby the balances
are counted separately from the real-life transactions
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Re: [GNC] Inventory

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/24/2019 9:38 AM, David Carlson wrote:

Basically, GnuCash cannot handle inventory.

It may be possible to create a fictitious commodity and assign a value to
it, but You cannot do any of the usual inventory functions such as tracking
locations, etc.

Or store the other information (location, reorder points, supplier info, 
alternative suppliers, etc.) that a fullblown inventory system handles 
(as well as interfacing with "general ledger")


I wish a more modular approach had been used for gnucash --- designed to 
accept feeds from pieces like "inventory", POS (point of sales", 
Payroll, etc. With the gnucash "general ledger" handling just the pure 
accounting.


Michael D Novack


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Re: [GNC] Gnucash bug

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/30/2019 3:52 AM, Wm via gnucash-user wrote:

On 09/07/2019 03:45, John Ralls wrote:



On 8 juil. 2019, at 08:55, R. Victor Klassen  
wrote:


Perhaps this has been fixed. I’m using 2.6.21 for production.

Using SQLite I am expecting every transaction to hit disk immediately.

Saturday we had a power failure and lost about five days’ worth of 
transactions including at least 10 invoices and three new customers.


I think I can reconstruct. But I wouldn’t expect this to have happened.
 It is also a "work flow" issue. You SHOULD want "clean" recovery 
points. So what you should ask yourself is whether you should make sure 
of an EXPLICIT save:

1) After entering transactions for a day
2) After entering data like "customers"

Do you understand what I am saying? Even if SQLite were saving data 
after each entry (I am used to SQL systems that would need a "commit") 
you would not know WHERE you were at.


Michael D Novack
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Re: [GNC] Club membership fees and charitable contributions - Business Features or Assets?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/2/2019 3:34 AM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

I’m not sure about keeping track of member donations in an Asset account.

There are difficult issues doing financials for non-profits which can 
require some fiddling using gnucash (or any alternative).


For example -- the members  may want to receive "statements" (invoices) 
and want these to reflect a unified statement (membership as well as 
pledges) BUT membership dues are NOT a receivable for such organizations 
>


ONE solution is to bite the bullet and keep multiple books for different 
purposes. Main books on a cash basis NOT tracking members but just the 
source of the income (dues, donations, pledges, etc.) and the other used 
just to be able to invoice and track which members have paid, etc. In 
the example situation above where members may contribute (get credited 
for contributions actually made by others) that is another level of 
complexity.


Michal D Novack

* Thus if a pledge is $5000 in the form of $1000 a year for five years 
they do not owe $5000 immediately

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Re: [GNC] Club membership fees and charitable contributions - Business Features or Assets?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/2/2019 1:21 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

Yes, I understand they are different. The Business Features *could* still be 
used, just not considered in a formal way.

But certainly, manual entries are possible.

The tough part of pledges is they really don’t go anywhere in the account tree 
that I can see.

They are not assets, not AR from a legal standpoint, not liabilities, not 
income, and since none of those, not equity either. Perhaps they should be 
tracked separately since trying to do so in GnuCash requires shoehorning 
something of the app to fit. But if one likes using shoehorns...

Regards,
Adrien
Sorry, but PLEDGES (unlike membership dues, etc.) are receivables. But 
only according to the terms of the pledge. If you pledge $X 
(unconditionally) that is a current receivable of $X. If you pledge $X 
in each of the years 2019, 2020, and 2021 then only $X is receivable 
now, $X more becomes receivable after Jan 1, 2020, etc.


Membership dues are not receivable when billed because legally a member 
can quit at any time. Rules of the organization may require notice, 
permission to demit, etc. but are not enforceable unless the member 
later seeks to rejoin.


HOWEVER --- charities and other non-profits rarely seek to enforce 
pledges because except in the circumstances where would not cause bad 
publicity. Thus if somebody (who clearly had the money) pledged 10 
million to their college endowment fund but dropped dead of a heart 
attack before sending it they probably WOULD approach the executor of 
the estate asking for it. But might not go to court if turned down.


Michael D Novack

PS: This is the reason why charities, etc. like to have you make a 
pledge (and set up automatic payment) of $Y/month. Because it IS then a 
receivable for them.

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Re: [GNC] Income statement incorrect

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 8/3/2019 6:16 AM, Liz wrote:

On Wed, 31 Jul 2019 09:10:02 -0700 (PDT)
Rich Shepard  wrote:


Would be nice to have a cash accounting option in addition to the
default accrual accounting option.

Whether a business uses cash or accrual accounting in Australia is set
by the tax authorities, so I am obliged to use cash accounting.
This is a common situation in many jurisdictions with certain sorts of 
businesses required to use either cash of accrual. The difficulty is 
that gnucash does not support PRODUCING invoices for cash based << in 
other words, simply producing an invoice but NOT entering transaction to 
A/R and income >>


That's why I am mentioning "multiple books". If I had to produce 
invoices, it is what I would do. Set up a virtual entity associated with 
the actual entity. This virtual entity would be "accrual" and so have 
A/R and income and it would produce the invoices to be sent out (and 
track which paid, which outstanding) but the A/R and income would 
otherwise be ignored << when invoice paid, a transaction in the main 
(cash books affecting cash and income >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: How to deal with the cash flow and the credit card.

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/24/2017 8:31 PM, R. Victor Klassen wrote:

Folks,

I think the original poster is looking at how to forecast cash flow.  Given the 
credit cards have different due dates, and assuming they are paid on their due 
date, does the account from which they are paid have enough in it for the 
coming month?
This depends on HOW one uses a credit card. Can scarcely schedule these 
transactions because the amount of the payment can be anything from the 
minimum payment due up to the full balance. That's a CHOICE made by the 
human. Not known in advance. Even those of us who normally pay the full 
balance each month on credit cards might SOMETIMES pay less if dealing 
with a cash flow crunch.


Look, this is really related to possible confusion about what a "cash 
flow" report means (should mean) and doesn't mean.


Budgets may be in terms of profit and loss (ensure expenses not greater 
than income) OR in terms of cash flow planning. You may need BOTH of 
these because can be all right with regard to one but not the other.


Michael


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Re: Cash Basis Reports

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 9/28/2017 5:20 AM, Warner Losh wrote:

I'm converting from quickbooks.

In quickbooks, it was super simple to have a 'cash basis' system, and still
keep track of the monies owed using things like invoices and accounts
receivable. In the US, business smaller than a certain size can be on a
cash basis. My businesses have been cash based for about 20 years now, and
QuickBooks has handled it nicely.
Unfortunately, gnucash business features (like invoicing) only work 
accrual basis. It would be nice if there were an option for those of us 
keeping books on the cash basis << I do accounting for non-profits, 
whose members often want to be invoiced for dues, etc. but those are NOT 
legally receivable >>


The work around is ugly and requires additional data entry << keeping a 
second set of "virtual" books to produce the invoices and record their 
being paid, etc. (and at that time entering transaction in the "real" 
cash basis books) >> But that is what I do for the non-profits for which 
I need to produce invoice statements.


Michael D Novack



Michael D Novack

Michael D Novack
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Re: Report Question

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 10/2/2017 4:42 AM, Joseph Hesse wrote:

Hi,
I am using the latest version 2.6.17 of gnucash.  I just ran the 
report "Expense Over Time = Expense Barchart" with the maximum number 
of vertical bars selected. The report lists all my expense items 
including one called "Other". Since the amount of "Other" is high, I 
would like to get a breakdown of the expense items included under 
"Other".


Is there a way to do this?

Thank you,
Joe Hesse 


Yes of course there is, you set up your CoA for as many categories of 
expenses as you like.


Step back a moment and think about this problem. Suppose you had NO sub 
accounts under "expense" (all lumped together). You would then have this 
problem with ALL of your expenses. So you decided to have some number of 
sub accounts that let you characterize (group) like expenses and then a 
bucket "other" for those you choose not to categorize/group because 
totally unrelated and/or unimportant.


At some later time, you realize that a number of transactions in this 
"other" account ARE related* and so you want them grouped also. Then DO 
THAT. Create a new expense sub account for those and move them there << 
The technically correct procedure would be to create a "correcting 
transaction" to do that but you will perhaps choose to edit the existing 
transactions >>


When you create your books, you will be very unlikely to know all of the 
accounts you will eventually need or want.


Michael D Novack

* Or maybe just one, but clearly so important/significant to your 
finances that you want it clearly listed instead of buried in a 
miscellaneous category.


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Re: Vendor Bill - Invoice Entries

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 10/15/2017 10:08 PM, DaveC49 wrote:

Hi,

The facilities you are requesting are likely to require an inventory
management system. At present Gnucash is an accounting package and currently
does not incorporate any features for inventory management. As far as i know
there are no plans to incorporate such features in the near future. To do so
would reuire a developer(s) interested in developing these features.
Similarly while it can handle the accounting specific side of payroll
management it does not handle the calculation of payrolls, deductions, taxes
etc. You may need to took at ERP software if you require these facilities.

David Cousens


I am going to point something out. Gnucash is an accounting package. A 
business might need a number of OTHER packages that would interact with 
the accounting package, but normally are separate parts. Why separate? 
Because which of these other parts a business might want/need depend on 
the business. A unified business application (including ALL the 
different possible pieces) would be unnecessarily bulky, with a given 
business never using many of those pieces.


inventory -- only if the business HAS inventory that it sells
payroll -- only if the business has employees (employees in the 
legal sense of that word)

billed time -- only of a business deals in "billable hours"
POS --- only if a business does this kind of retail << point of sales 
not only interacts with accounting but also inventory >>

etc. etc. etc.

Since I do accounting just for non-profits, I am aware of OTHER "pieces" 
that would apply to this specialty. Just because I may be using gnucash 
to provide these pieces does NOT mean "part of gnucash" << I am simply 
ALSO using gnucash to implement "virtual  books" for those specific 
pieces >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: GNU Cash Transactions - Wiped Out

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/9/2017 3:39 PM, Roy Molepo wrote:

Greetings

I have been using GNU Cash and processed transactions for 12 months.
Today when I opened the Program all my processed transactions have been
wiped out / disappeared. All balances are now ZEROS.

How can I recover my processed transactions?
Help will be highly APPRECIATED.

Yours Sincerely

Roy Molepo
Let's get clear about what you are and are not seeing. If I am wrong 
interpreting what you are trying to describe, say so.


I am taking what you describe when starting gnucash is that it opens a 
file where you DO see all of the accounts you expect to see, but when 
you ask it to open an account, you don't see the transactions you expect 
to see.


Things to check:
a) Is this the right file that was opened? You should see its name 
displayed. Remember, you data is NOT "in the program" but in data files 
(you can have several, one program (gnucash) being used to keep 
different books.


b) If it is the right file, check that there are no date range filters 
in effect. For example, if you were (accidentally) asking gnucash to 
show you just 2018 on you would not expect to see any transactions.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Bank reconciliation

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/13/2017 1:14 PM, Cam Ellison wrote:

On 13/11/17 09:45 AM, David Goodenough wrote:

Does no-one else have this problem?



I have dealt with this by setting up a separate Asset account for 
receiving payments, similar to what you have. When a payment is 
received, it goes into this "Payment" account, and then when the bank 
deposit is made the appropriate amount is debited from the Payment 
account. This process adds a step between receipt of the cheque (thus 
acknowledging the invoice as paid) and depositing it.
Not JUST acknowledging as paid. The customer is NOT responsible for your 
delay in depositing a check. Nor does any government I know of consider 
the date you received money to be the date you got around to depositing 
it << the LEGAL date might in fact be the date of "constructive 
delivery" which is why the postmark on a mailed payment might be 
important >>


The common name for an account of this sort is "undeposited cash". 
Especially if you normally are depositing several payments/checks at one 
time you might prefer to always have them first go to "undeposited cash" 
(each can be split on the other side as needed) and then the deposit 
transaction itself is simple/clean/uncluttered.


BTW , another account of this sort often used by businesses is 
"suspense". Say you receive a check but there is uncertainty what it is 
for, the correctness of the amount, etc.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Two different sets of accounts

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Guncash, opening in its default mode, will always open the last file you 
had opened.
a) You can "tell" gnucash not to do this, but instead open "nofile" and 
then you have to choose which file you want to open (there is even a 
drop down list for the last several you had open). That is what those of 
us who are using gnucash to keep several sets of books usually choose to 
do << there is no reason for us to expect that the books we want are the 
same as last open >>
b) Even when gnucash has opened the "wrong" set of books (you have two) 
you can at that point tell it to open the other. See that "file" button 
on the top left? That will let you open another, either from the list OR 
by explicitly entering the name.


Michael D Novack

On Monday, 20 November 2017 01:33:11 GMT adamandeve club wrote:

Hello, experts,
I am Treasurer of two clubs. I have used Gnucash for both, but up to now I
have had two different Macintosh computers, one for each club.

  Now I have

traded my old computers for one fancy new MacBook Pro. My two sets of
accounts are currently held on a USB stick for each. But even with the
newest version of Gnucash (2.6.18-Intel) only the first set of accounts
opens, the one that was initially opened on the new computer. No matter
which account of the other set I double-click on, with Gnucash closed, the
other set of accounts is opened. How can I keep both sets of accounts
separately – and they cannot be put together, being totally different clubs
with different financial dealings – using Gnucash? Thank you,
John Nightingale,
Secretary/Treasurer,
Adam and Eve Social Club Inc



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Re: Two different sets of accounts

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/20/2017 9:14 PM, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

On 11/20/2017 09:47 AM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:




I have an additional solution, practical since I am the administrator of
this computer.

I have my own private accounts, and if I am logged into my machine as
me, if I run GnuCash, I get those.

I also am treasurer for a small non-profit outfit, and I gave that
outfit its own login. If I log in as that and run GnuCash, I get those.
Both are under /home, but otherwise separate.
Yes that of course will work since separate users have their own data 
areas. I was not suggesting that solution because in my case a lot more 
than two entities having books kept for them plus a number of virtual 
entities (virtual sets of books) .  Would be too many logins.


Thus loosely attached to our personal books are two virtual sets of 
books. For example, we have a solar system on our barn and it has a set 
of books for the "AS IF" it were a business that borrowed money from us 
(and from the point of view of our books, an investment in a mortgage) 
various sources of income (tax credits, credits against electric bills, 
sale of SRECs, etc.)  and various amounts as expenses (its share of 
insurance, taxes attributed to income that affects our personal taxes, 
etc.). How successful is this "business" at paying off its loan? (at an 
above market rate of interest). If it pays the loan off early, what 
dividends can it be paying on built up equity?


As for the organizations, well when entering transactions often have to 
refer to emails (when I have to ask the person who submitted a receipt 
for reimbursement "what WAS that?" so I know the right expense account). 
So I want to be under the same log in that our email is.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Could not obtain the lock

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/20/2017 9:49 PM, moi...@web.net wrote:

No, the files are not "Read-Only".

My username for Windows??? Yes, it is different on the new computer. Does
that matter?

In general, yes, and not only for gnucash.

Would affect ALL situations were a path name was saved because the path 
name is now different.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Unable to create liability account under expense account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/23/2017 2:17 PM, Suresh Saragadam wrote:

I am working on a small construction work where i need to record my
expenses for both material and men (labour)

i am purchasing cement on credit(Loan) that is accounts payable i.e. 
liability Here i need to create liability account for cement under 
material expenses, but i am unable to create a liability account for 
cement under material expense account so that i can record total 
material spend including liability for cement this is very minimum 
accounting requirement. Regards Suresh


As others have explained, this is a misunderstanding about basics.

In double entry bookkeeping, each transaction has net equal debits and 
credits. When you pay an expense, you are often writing a check. In 
other words, the credit side of the transaction would be the checking 
account. But there are other possibilities for what the credit side 
might be << the debit side of the transaction of course being the 
expense "materials".


1) You might be paying with a credit card. Go back to that "often". In 
some cases (for some sorts of expense) you might ALWAYS be using a 
credit card. For example, these days, with "self serve" gas stations, 
you might always be buying gasoline that way.


2) In THIS case, the vendor is allowing you you to "pay on account" (not 
unusual in business*). So under LIABILITIES you set up and account for 
this vendor showing what you owe. When you pay on this account NOT an 
expense (you already accounted for that when the liability was assumed) 
but a transaction where this liability is the debit side (for an account 
if type debit, that is a reduction in the debt) and the credit side your 
checking account you used to pay that bill.


Michael D Novack

* It is not that unusual (for businesses) to be dealing with vendors on 
a basis like "net 30 days, thereafter 1% per month" or even with a 
discount for paying within some defined amount of time.


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Re: Unable to open 2nd set of accounts on one MacBook Pro

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/24/2017 12:25 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:

This has long been an issue with GnuCash on the Mac, such that most of us have simply 
gotten used to it. I will add something to the wiki FAQ shortly. It has been entered 
as a bug (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=761024 
), so it has been noted for 
potential correction at some point. In the meantime, most of us just accept it for 
what it  is. If you are regularly using multiple data files, you can use a terminal 
command to force GnuCash to open the file of your choosing: 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/Gnucash 
—-/path/to/my/gnucash/datafile/firstaccounts.gnucash

David


No, you don't have to accept it for what it is.

   If you are using gnucash to keep books for several entities (real or 
virtual) under the same session log in you might prefer to be calling 
gnucash with the "nofile" parameter to override the default "open the 
last one that was open". In other words, this is not an problem with 
gnucash itself but the default. That will save a step since gnucash will 
come up with no file open and you then use want.


It has been a while since the list has had a description of the steps to 
change a "shortcut' so that the target is called with the "nofile" 
parameter. Time to do that again? It has been many years since I last 
did that, so maybe somebody else describe the process?


Michael D Novack
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Re: Unable to create liability account under expense account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/23/2017 10:07 PM, Suresh Saragadam wrote:

Hi Buddha,

Thanks for the reply,Now I understood may be it is not a general accounting
practice.
To my requirement i am not required to record double entry,
I know that i am spending from my pocket there is no need for income or
profit and loss statement,
I just want to track my Expenses. and accounts Payable.

Gnucash is a package for doing double entry bookkeeping.

That said, were you very experienced with it, you could get it to do 
what you want (I, for example, have some sets of "virtual" books). 
However, those are still (actually) double entry. It is just that the 
"rest of the books" not defined beyond the minimum needed.


In your case, the other side (the credit side) would be "paid by" << 
check, cash (literally), kind (barter), and assumed liability >>  Weird 
as that might seem, those could be of type Income. The virtual entity in 
this case a sub business of your business that pays the bills for your 
main business, receiving money from your main business to do that.


But like I said, you should FIRST have a good understanding of double 
entry bookkeeping and lots of practical experience doing it before you 
play around like that. Else you will make too many mistakes.


Michael
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Re: Unable to open 2nd set of accounts on one MacBook Pro

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/24/2017 10:24 AM, D wrote:

Michael, your "shortcuts" are essentially the command line entry I provided. 
The OP could put that in a text file and make it executable on a Mac, for sure. It's a 
little more involved to set up.

They are both still methods to work around a default behavior that many users 
find surprising, especially on a Mac.

It is not just on a Mac. Nor do I agree that the developers were wrong 
to make the default "last file" because perhaps 90% or more of gnucash 
users only keep one set of books. Those who have only one set of books 
ALWAYS want "the last file open" and would probably complain "why do I 
have to go through an extra step to select which file I want when I only 
have one".


The PROGRAM cannot know how many books it is being used to keep. Nor is 
it necessarily true that the users with just one set of books ALWAYS had 
just one set << might originally have had a test set, now only very 
rarely if ever used >>


It is only those of us who are keeping multiple active sets of books 
within the same user log in who have the problem and might want to set 
the parameter to "nofile". I say "might want to" because even in the 
case of having multiple sets of books within the same login it is 
possible that one of those sets of books is used MUCH more frequently 
than all the others combined*. In which case you like the "last open" 
default since only rarely having to from there open a different set of 
books.


Michael D Novack

* Example? My virtual set of books for the solar system is rarely 
opened. There are scarcely three dozen transactions for the entire year 
and the purpose of this virtual set of books is just to track the solar 
system AS IF it were a real entity in which we had invested. I maybe 
enter transactions quarterly (from having written them down on the sheet 
of the last reports run).


In other cases, activity in a set of books might be very 
"seasonal". During the active phase, would be opening frequently to 
enter transactions but the rest of the year scarcely at all. Accounting 
for an annual event would be like that, with 90-95% of the transactions 
concentrated within the weeks right before and right after the event.




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Re: Unable to open 2nd set of accounts on one MacBook Pro

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/25/2017 11:41 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:

John,

I know you and the other developers are doing huge service to the rest of us 
with your work. I truly wish I had the skills that allowed me to help with 
this; years of attempts have shown me that this is beyond me, however.

Thank you all.

David
In case we want a formal definition of the behavior desired << let's see 
if we have agreement about that >>
a) Make gnucash "transitive" instead of "intransitive"  in other 
words, let it take an "object", file to be opened (books to be opened). 
Right now it does not do this, only appears to for those users who have 
only one set of books. In other words, they may click on an object (that 
is a file ending in .gnucash) and see the action "gnucash opens with 
this file" but that is not really what is happening. Instead, gnucash is 
ignoring the object and simply starting. If starting "file" (default) 
then the last file that was open or if "nofile" then without any file 
open << the "file" button will bring up the selection list and allow one 
of those to be opened or any other name that is typed in >>


Then people with several sets of books would just have objects (for 
each on their desktop) assuming that they do that << I don't, just 
applications on the desktop >> or they go to the directory (file folder) 
where these files live and click on which they want.


b) When opened without an object could be current behavior. It would be 
nice though to allow an easier way to change the default behavior.


Michael D Novack


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Re: Reconciliation Report

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 11/29/2017 11:07 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

Rick,

Try the Transaction or Transaction by Payee report (the latter posted here on 
the list).

You can show the Reconciled Date using the display tab in options, and/or sort 
by the reconciled date in the sorting tab.

Unfortunately, I don’t think you can filter by reconciled/non-reconciled as the 
report currently stands.

Perhaps a more serious issue? Depending on what is meant by 
"reconciliation report".


Rick, can you describe what your report is supposed to show? Let me 
explain. In the "old days" each month, when we got our bank statement, 
we "reconciled" the checking account. The bank statement showed the 
balance as of the close of the period and also all the deposits that the 
bank has during the period and all checks cleared during the period. 
Your books would have a bank account showing all deposits you made 
during the period and all checks written during the period and what you 
think the ending balance should be. Those two would normally NOT agree 
because:

1) A deposit made on the last day of the period might not be credited.
2) Some number of checks written during the period (or even from 
previous periods) not cleared yet.


"1" rare but "2" the normal situation.

So you took your balance and added to it all the checks that had not 
cleared (those NOT reconciled in the gnucash sense of "reconciled") and 
took the bank balance and added to it any deposit you made not shown on 
the bank statement and checked that those those two sums were equal.


THAT what you mean?

<< I don't do any on-line banking (not over a dial-up connection OR a 
public access (unsecured) wifi) and the organizations for which I keep 
books have  a low enough volume of checks written each month that doing 
the old fashioned reconciliation no big chore to do that "report" by 
hand since not likely to be more than 2-3 uncleared checks >>


If THAT is the report you require, unless you have a large number of 
checks still outstanding each period, automating the process perhaps a 
waste of time. So try to better describe what you have been asked to 
produce.


Michael D Novack



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Re: How to create an asset with a reduced value compared to my regular currency (dollars)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/3/2017 10:16 AM, Ronal B Morse wrote:
Adrian, is there a reason you treat the rebate as a negative expense 
instead of miscellaneous (non-taxable) income? To me, the rebate is 
something you get rather than something you don't give, but my 
analysis could be incorrect, and if it is I'd like to know.


RBM 
Yes, very good reason. So as not to overstate (both) income and 
expenses. You did NOT have as an expense the full amount and then income 
of the difference between the (actual) discounted expense and the full 
price.


It might help if I gave a concrete example why this is not arbitrary?

To do that we will need to increase the amounts and put this into a 
context where there is a specific regulation. I will use for the 
regulation US IRS rules for 501(c)3s << charitable non-profits >>


Regulation: If gross income > $100,00 file the 990, if not, but > 
$25,000 file the 990-EZ, if under that file just the electronic postcard 
990-N << just indicates "we still exist", no details >>


Situation: Organization with all other income of $24,500 hires work done 
for $3,000 but then the vendor says that will give a 20% discount to 
non-profits. If this is treated as $600 of extra income, must file the 
990-EZ instead of just the 990-N.




Michael D Novack
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Re: Enhancement Request for GNUcash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

 Most of us reading this are having more than a little difficulty 
understanding for WHAT you are asking.

To whom it may concern,

Given how limited and un-free our monetary system is nowadays, I think
GNUcash would make a great tool for the following freedoms below:
What does the free or unfree status of a currency have to do with 
keeping track of it with double entry bookkeeping. Maybe give some 
example where an "unfreeness" would affect accounting. Is it THIS sort 
of thing? You deposit a check into your checking account and so record a 
transaction in that amount as of that date. But your bank probably has a 
hold on that amount until that check has cleared << you would NOT be 
allowed to withdraw your full bank balance until then >> Or do you mean 
something else?


0 > The Freedom to modify your starting and ending balance. This means you
can take a @200 balance (yes, I'm using the @ symbol for example use), and
turn it into @20 without the need to transfer anything.
With double entry bookkeeping EVERYTHING you do has to have equal debit 
and credit amounts. Are you possibly meaning "can I "rescale" EVERY 
amount in the set of books? << that would not violate equal debits and 
credits >>


1 > The Freedom to add and subtract from your ending balance like a
calculator.

I can't eve guess what you might mean by this.

 2 > The Freedom to send and receive money in any amount you choose.

Nor this one either. What limitation on the amounts being entered are 
you referring to?


 3 > The Freedom to exchange this currency for other currency of any 
amount or size. So I am generically requesting a feature that allows 
this to be implemented into GNUcash, just to exercise this right. Thanks 
for understanding, Jesse.


For a "what if"? You want a global change of currency at some specified 
exchange rate? << as opposed to the ACTUAL rate when the transactions 
become real >> You are making an unjustified assumption here, that all 
the things in your books would be exchangable in this way. Currency yes, 
but how about other assets that exist in the place of the original 
currency. You have a "book value" for those BUT do not know what the 
actual amount of currency they convert to until that conversion (to the 
first currency) has taken place. For example, your house here in the US 
might have a book value of $X but you do NOT know if that can be 
converted to #Y until/unless that house has been successfully sold.


Michael D Novack
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Re: How to create an asset with a reduced value compared to my regular currency (dollars)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/7/2017 5:53 PM, David Carlson wrote:

Adrian,

While I am not an accountant, historically I have used a method similar to
that suggested by Adrien.  However, I am intrigued by the answer provided
by Michael Novack, as it avoids the problem of overstating potentially
taxable income without needing to have a group of accounts to segregate
before running your tax reports at the end of the year.

Thus I am considering switching to a method modeled on his suggestion.

David C

There are other situations which might call for the adjustment of an 
asset value (or liability amount) that should not be considered either 
income or expense. I suggest looking in accounting texts with the topic 
probably under "journal entries". Some examples:


a) Back in the 60's I went to school with the help of NDF loans. There 
might be something similar today. They had a condition on the liability 
amount. Could treat these are ordinary loans BUT every year you taught 
forgave 10% of the loan.


b) When you opened your books, one of the major asset categories was art 
work. Yes, if you sold a picture for a greater amount than its book 
value, a capital gain (or for less, a capital loss). But suppose instead 
a picture thought to be by artist A was later discovered to have been by 
artist B (with VERY different values).


I am NOT an accountant. But I think these would be handled by "journal 
entry" adjustments with equity being the other side of the transaction.


Michael
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Re: Invoice & Bill Posting Date Issues Across Multiple Periods

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/9/2017 7:38 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

Thanks Maf.,

But it seems the entire invoice posts together on the posting date, not by 
line-item date. I just double checked several of them that crossed period 
boundaries.

I’m in the U.S., not sure what the specific rules are on invoice time frames, 
but GAAP would say the invoice/bill date doesn’t matter - what matters is when 
you actually do the work or incur the expense.

Going to put my two cents in (even though I am  not doing business 
accounting)


More complicated that that (the dates) and I will give you a concrete 
example from my own experience as customer. We had a solar system 
installed and we had a CONTRACT with the installer and this contract 
specified dates/events that made various portions of the job payable. 
Things like "upon signing contract" (of course no actual work done), 
upon delivery of materials (that one at least matches the above), upon 
completion/up and running but THAT depended on actions outside of the 
control of the vendor (when building/electrical inspector signed off, 
when electric utility came out for final hook up and they stall that as 
much as they can).


In other words, of all of the payments, only ONE was related to when the 
vendor actually do the work.


However I agree that the date an invoice is prepared is irrelevant. 
Should have effective dates for the charges.


Michael D Novack
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Re: entries

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/10/2017 7:33 PM, Christine via gnucash-user wrote:

Whenever I have a DR and a CR the summary shows that although it balances
all the amounts are showing as negative. Does anyone know what I have done
wrong here as I cant work it out.

Christine
My suspicion is that you are entering transactions in the reverse 
direction. Accounts of various TYPES have natural (positive) balances on 
either the debit side or the credit side. For example, the types "asset" 
and "expense" are positive on the debit side while types "income", 
"liability", and "equity" are on the credit side.


That kind of systematic error would not affect the books being in balance.

Michael
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Re: Cannot edit opening balance

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/11/2017 3:17 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:

I would suggest reading section 4.4 of the tutorial, where the issue regarding 
handling starting balance problems is addressed directly.
David

  
I would also suggest learning how to CORRECT errors, which in formal 
accounting is not done by changing/editing existing errors.


Let me give an example. Suppose you did set up your books using 
"starting balance" << as others have pointed out, some of us would NOT 
have done that but would have manually entered the initial transactions 
with a date before the start of the first period, usually the day before >>


Dec 31, 2016
Cash on hand db$500
 Equity cr $500   (this probably part of a split 
amount if :starting balance was used --- a single entry for the total of 
all assets minus all liabilities)


Now on June 25th 2017 you discovered a jar squirreled away that had $100 
dollars in it. How do you correct the starting balance? You can enter a 
transaction with a date of Dec 31, 2016

Cash on hand db $100
  Equitycr  $100  (I don't know what equity sub 
accounts the "starting balance" might have created since I never have 
used that, but if a sub account was created, use that)
Your description for this entry would be something like "correction of 
starting balance because of money found in jar"


Michael D Novack



Michael D Novack
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Re: New User to GnuCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/14/2017 2:10 PM, Jack Slater wrote:

I think I get what your saying and at this point (a) I have no clue how to
manage/edit/adjust what I have to that type of structure nor (b) do I know
enough yet to feel confident in making any changes! LOL..

I'm reconciling my November statement as we "speak" and had to add a few
account transfer entries - that in Quicken would credit 1 account and
automatically debit the transfer account. I have non idea how/if I can do
that in GC!?

Any pointers/help is gladly and thankfully accepted!

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 12:53 PM, Fross, Michael  wrote:


When you are entering transactions (of any sort) in gnucash or any other 
double entry package you are always debiting one account (or accounts) 
and crediting one account (or accounts). Whether the second account is 
being debited or credited will depend on what you are doing in the first 
account (the one you are entering the transactions from). THAT is 
automatic using gnucash.


<< the plurals above refer to split transactions which you will learn 
about later >>


Michael
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Re: New User to GnuCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/14/2017 5:23 PM, Alex Aycinena wrote:

On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 2:10 PM, Jack Slater  wrote:


How could that be? I’m paying from Checking. That’s a debit is it not? If
not then everything I’ve learned in 59 years is wrong!

On Dec 14, 2017, at 4:08 PM, Alex Aycinena 
wrote:
Nope, you have it backwards. Double entry bookkeeping has two "senses", 
debit and credit (not quite the same as positive and negative). There 
are three FUNDAMENTAL types of accounts, asset, liability, and equity 
(type income and expense are actually temporary accounts of fundamental 
type equity --- hundreds of years ago they did not exist and 
transactions were entered directly against equity).


The normal balance of the type asset is debit (a debit increases an asset).
The normal balance of the types liability and equity is credit (a credit 
increases a liability or equity)


You are being confused by looking at the statement you get from your 
bank. That is because from THEIR point of view, when you make a deposit 
it is a credit (for THEM) and when they pay a check a debit (for THEM). 
But for you it would be the other way around.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Invoice & Bill Posting Date Issues Across Multiple Periods

[Mike or Penny Novack]

I have zero experience with gnucash's invoicing system. Nevertheless I 
think in this conversation dates may be confused. When I receive an 
invoice, say for a visit to the doctor, there are SEVERAL dates involved.


a) The date the service was performed.
b) The effective date of the invoice prepared by the doctor's billing 
service.

c) The real time date when the invoice was prepared by the billing service

Which of these dates are we talking about? And from the doctor's point 
of view, which of these dates (were we using gnucash) would be used for 
the date of the transaction? << when affecting AR >>


When people are talking about periods being crossed "when work done" vs 
"when invoice prepared" I wonder whether all are talking about the same 
date. And if gnucash IS using the real time date when somebody gets 
around to entering data, there may be a different sort of problem.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Church Use of GNUCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/20/2017 2:40 PM, jcnw wrote:

I am setting up our church books on GNUCash and wonder how to handle
restricted funds.
For example if a member makes a donation to The Organ Fund


I do accounting for non-profits and so can help.

There is more than one way to handle this, and factors which may lead to 
the choice which are things like: (answer these)

1) Will the special fund have its own bank account?
2) Will the special fund drive last for a long or short time? Is this an 
immediate project or likely to go on for months or years before enough 
funds raised?
3) How formal do you want to be? How formal the restriction? << that's 
specified by the donor --- for example, "I'd like this to be for the 
organ but if needed for something else you can" is an INFORMAL restriction.


Michael D Novack

PS: The strictly proper method of having a liability "donor restricted 
funds" can ALWAYS be used.

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Re: Church Use of GNUCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/21/2017 4:03 PM, Aaron Laws wrote:
On Thu, Dec 21, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Mike or Penny Novack 
<mailto:stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com>> wrote:


My question: can you say more about using a liability (rather than 
asset subaccounts) for restricted funds? Perhaps a link or two, or 
(ideally) a reference to some gaap? That would be excellent!


Thanks for your continued enrichment of the public at large through 
the gnucash-user mailing list. You are a tremendous resource.
Have you ever looked at the financial statement of a largish 501(c)3?  
<< so a formal, audited financial statement >>


If so, did you not see (in the balance sheet portion of the report) the 
liability for "donor restricted funds" (and possibly other sorts of 
restrictions)


The idea is that the money was received into the regular banks accounts 
but sort of not there/available because a corresponding liability. If 
and when money has been expended for a reason which would qualify for 
the use of those funds an adjustment transaction is made for the amount 
no longer restricted. Not necessarily with each expenditure. Possibly 
only quarterly (for the total of qualifying expenses that quarter) but 
decisions like THAT depend on volume.


Michael

PS: I am NOT an accountant qualified to be giving advice. I simply am 
doing books, preparing financial statements, a doing the filings for 
some non-profits.


PSS: Yes, I have also used the children of an asset account 
(partitioning a bank account). But that was only with INFORMAL 
restrictions that the organization was not required to respect if 
circumstances changed. Thus in this "organ fund" example, you might 
choose to do that IF (for example) it was decided not to have an organ, 
the church could keep that money and use it for something else -- or 
would they have to ask the individual donors whether in that case they 
wanted their money back.


--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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Re: Church Use of GNUCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/22/2017 1:56 PM, Aaron Laws wrote:

Excellent; thank you. One more question:





Assets:Chequingx
   Liabilities:Organ Fundx

Then some expense:

Expense:Organ   x
  Assets:Chequing  x

But then how is the encumbrance relieved?

<< an adjustment transaction is made >> How does that adjustment 
transaction look?
Opens the whole topic of "journal transactions" << there are more 
possible adjustment transactions than this >>


But that is how I would do it. Let's say we had a restricted fund for X 
(the X fund) and it had a liability balance of $1000. Let's say that we 
were adjusting quarterly (will discuss later if likely a one shot 
situation). The quarterly total of X expenses were $400 (expenses 
qualified to be be paid put of the restricted fund). I would enter a 
transaction debiting the liability and crediting equity for $400 giving 
the description "released form restriction in 3rd quarter" (or 
whatever). If this were a large restricted fund only a portion of which 
used each year, might do that adjustment annually along with all the 
other year end adjustments << that is when the bulk of "journal 
transactions would be" >>


BUT -- if this were a one shot deal, say we were raising a fund and 
using it all at once ) possibly with general organization funds added I 
might choose to do it along with the purchase transaction. Wait till you 
have lots of experience with split transactions before you tackle a 
fancy two way split like that.


Michael D Novack


--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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Re: Church Use of GNUCash

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/22/2017 3:30 PM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:

On 12/22/2017 1:56 PM, Aaron Laws wrote:

Excellent; thank you. One more question:


Something which I forgot to ask:

Does the organization have another bank account besides the checking 
account? If the organization has a savings account (for example) an 
informal way to account for restricted funds, but one which might seem 
more intuitive to your board, is partitions (child accounts) within the 
savings account. In other words, instead of having JUST the savings 
account, make that a parent of "general savings", "restricted fund one", 
restricted fund two, etc.


The total in the parent should match the bank statement.
You enter ordinary transactions affecting savings in "general"
When you have qualifying expenses for one of the restricted funds, you 
just transfer that amount to "general" << and you could do this either 
as expenses incurred or by periodic adjustment.??


Michael D Novack

PS -- You can do this even if you have just a checking account BUT it 
makes reconciling the checking account trickier so I wouldn't recommend 
that.

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Re: 2018?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/30/2017 3:54 PM, Kelly Sandwell wrote:

What do I need to do to use your gnucash in 2018?  I have used it this year
(2017) and I am very impressed.  I don't know much about accounting but my
tax preparer was very happy with the reports I showed him a month ago.

  Thanks,

Kelly Sandwell
You don't HAVE to do anything. Gnucash can continue to produce reports 
for the "current year" as long as you correctly specify the date or date 
range for the report. You don't HAVE to do a "close the books" (whether 
you would want to depends among other things how you look at your data**).


That said I suggest:
a) Even if you don't do this regularly, make a back up copy of the file, 
ideally onto removable medium so could go somewhere safe.
b) I would also make a copy of the file incorporating the new year in 
its name, and from now on use that new file. That will make a whole lot 
of things easier (like SAFELY getting rid of old of all log files etc. 
since the NAMES of these will be different). Also your old file is a 
backup (of state at year end) handy on your machine (as opposed to the 
one you sent for safekeeping off site*)


Michael D Novack

* If I seem to be overly worried about this, we had a house fire in 
2006, where just one room burned but backups were not far enough away to 
escape heat/smoke damage.


** IF you want the balances of the temporary accounts (income and 
expense) to reflect the current year as opposed to just using reports is 
one of those factors that might decide you on doing a "close the books". 
If you do do "close the books" either using the facility or manually I 
suggest you make backups before and after, named according << like 
"beforeclose2017" and "afterclose2017" because you can't rerun an 
"Income Statement" report after.



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Re: Company sponsored stock plan

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 12/30/2017 4:39 PM, Klaus Dahlke wrote:

Hi Wolfgang,
I have modeled a comparable plan as follows: first of all, I record my salary 
only net. Salary is what is posted to my bank account after all deductions.

I you don't participate in such plan, posting is straight forward, e.g.:
Bank <-> Income:salary -> 1000

If you participate in the plan, a further account is helpful to show the plan 
contribution. Also, the amount transferred from your company to your bank is 
reduced by your own contribution and the taxation for companies' addition.
Stop --- this advice depends on jurisdiction (in the US, the 
contributions if "pretax" are taxed only at distribution time many years 
down the road). But there may be other complications. The employer 
contribution is usually "conditional" becoming vested over time.


 Accounting for a 401k is complicated.

I'm at the other end of this process. But were I using gnucash during 
the money going in phase I probably would account for the 401k on a 
separate set of books. Like I said, the "net worth" of a 401k depends on 
lots of things like vesting and current age (can money be received 
without penalty tax in addition) and even can be conditional on why 
money taken out, and whether taken out or borrowed (if the plan allows 
that)


Michael D Novack

Michael D Novack
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Re: Company sponsored stock plan

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/1/2018 4:01 PM, Klaus Dahlke wrote:




Stop --- this advice depends on jurisdiction (in the US, the
contributions if "pretax" are taxed only at distribution time many years
down the road). But there may be other complications. The employer
contribution is usually "conditional" becoming vested over time.

   Accounting for a 401k is complicated.


Acutally, I am not sure whether Wolfgang is engaged in a 401k plan or he just 
enjoyes 'share based compensation' as in my case (not unusual these days in 
Germany). The company shares I buy I can sell the next day I have acces to. 
Wolfgang mentioned reporting in Euro, so my inital guess was that it is plain 
'share based compensation'.

I did say "depends on jurisdiction".

 And we have "share based compensation" here in the US too. And that 
MAY be like you described "I can sell the next day" or maybe not (not 
until a certain amount of time has passed) and there might be other 
complications like given OPTIONS to purchase shares (so things like 
value of option till exercised or expired -- and shares so purchased 
MIGHT also have restrictions on sale attached). I suspect that at least 
some of the complications I just described might exist in Europe as well 
as other places.


But do note, ONE of the possibilities for 401k plans here IS 
contributions of company stock. A 401k does not HAVE to offer a wide 
range of investment options.


Michael




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Re: Check Register view disappeared; how do I get it back?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/3/2018 1:38 PM, Dave Orsinger wrote:

Hi,
I asked this basic question several days ago and still haven't found a 
solution. I was starting with gnucash on a very basic, personal 
level.  I was entering data in the basic "check" register. When taking 
a break, I accidentally "x'd" the check register tab and it went away 
(no surprise). However, when I tried to make it reappear, I cant 
figure out how to do it. My data is still there as I can run reports, 
etc. but I need the "check" register to continue entering more data.
Perhaps someone can create a "dummy" account (named after me), do what 
I did in closing the check register, and figure out how to get it back.


Much appreciated.
Dave O
You had been keeping this account "open" (a tab for it on the bar) and 
you closed it so the tab went away?


What tabs DO you still have on that bar? Surely one for "accounts". 
Click on that and it will bring up a view of your CoA (chart of 
accounts; your hierarchy of accounts). You then find your checking 
account in that hierarchy and open it (click on it) which will put it 
back on the bar. Yes, MOST of the time your checking account will be one 
of the accounts affected by a transaction but not always, so you need to 
learn how to open ANY account in your CoA. So learning how to (re)open 
your checking account useful.


Michael
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Re: How to deal with RRSP's (Canada)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/5/2018 1:05 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:

David—

I see where you are coming from on this.

For reference, I accept your 5 assumptions; I believe they are accurate for 
many US retirement accounts as well.

.
I guess, from a philosophical perspective, the question really is: when do 
these funds become income? Is it when you get paid, or is it when the money 
actually gets disbursed? It seems to me that most of us are looking at it from 
the first perspective, but that the taxing agencies are looking at it from the 
second. So, for example, I have paycheck transactions that document my 
retirement contributions, transferring to the retirement asset accounts from a 
special (retirement) income account
David
There are ADDITIONAL questions if a US 401k. For example, are company 
contributions vested immediately or only over time? Here is a typical 
case (yours might be different)

1) Company contributions are vested 10% per year.
2) Any still unvested contributions become fully vested upon retirement 
at normal age (possibly also separation earlier but after age 55) or 
upon death if earlier.


In other words, the company contributions are conditional on staying 
with the company. They are in the account and earning but there is a 
diminishing liability (you have to pay back the unvested portion if you 
leave)


The 401k account MAY also have after tax contributions made to it, but 
that only affects how distributions will be taxed.


Another benefit that some companies offer is "split dollar" insurance. 
Very complicated to figure its affect on net worth. With split dollar, 
the company still owns the policy but you get to select the beneficiary 
<< the rights associated with ownership of an insurance policy can be 
separated >> Called "split" because the employee is taxed for the 
premium of the same amount term policy. Often to prevent that 
complication, the employee is billed that amount. At termination the 
employee has the right to:
1) Surrender the policy paying the company back for the premiums from 
the accumulated policy values keeping the remainder.

2) Pay the company that amount and keep the policy.
Note that there is a hard to calculate value associated with that choice 
<< what is your health status at this time in the future when you have 
to make that decision.


Note that this is simply a special case of things that might affect 
"effective" net worth or income but are difficult to carry on the (main) 
books. For example, a job might provide in addition to salary, housing, 
use of a vehicle, etc. << and this could even be tax free "income" 
depending on the circumstances >>


Michael D Novack
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Re: Income Statement report to show loan paydown amount?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/9/2018 1:40 PM, Tj Junior wrote:

Wondering if this is possible, the income statement appears to be the
closest I've been able to find.  Looking to find a summary of income and
expenses summarized (e.g total over 1 year rather than by transaction), but
I'd like it to show what's paid towards loans as well.  The income portion
is already there, it's the expense portion I'm having trouble with.

The portion of your mortgage payment that is applied to reducing the 
principle of the loan is NOT an expense, which is why not showing on the 
Income Statement report. It is a reduction of a liability (the mortgage).


In addition to running the Income Statement for a period you should run 
a Balance Sheet for the start of the period (immediately before) and the 
end of the period. It is there that you should see the reduction of the 
liability.


Michael D Novack

PS: Strictly speaking, that portion of your mortgage payment that goes 
into escrow to pay taxes when due, possibly also insurance premiums when 
due, is also not an expense << the escrow account is a restricted asset 
-- when funds from it are actually used to pay tax bills, etc. is the 
transaction which is the expense >>

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Re: Collecting payments from others then remitting to one vendor

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/12/2018 8:48 PM, Christopher Lam wrote:

You could do liability accounts for each utility bill but I like the
concept of 'kitty funds' which gives you/them a real-time view of monies
owed by whom.

I would make the choice (asset accounts or liability accounts) depending 
on whether they usually paid you their share in advance or usually 
reimbursed you afterwards. Then on rare times when the other way around, 
the transactions "contra". But if the arrangement is new you won't have 
that history.


Note that even if you started one way, you can easily enough change this 
around later if their behavior changes.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Correcting Opening Balances

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/13/2018 5:17 PM, David Carlson wrote:

Did you check the transactions as you imported them to weed out duplicates
and correct errors?

If not, I would suggest starting over to get at least reasonably close to a
good starting point.
Also, this is a case where the solution to the problem more obvious if 
you understand what "opening balance" is doing, how you would be doing 
that if setting up your books manually (hand creating the opening 
TRANSACTIONs), and the proper/formal method of correcting "errors" and 
omissions << entering a correcting transaction instead of editing an 
existing one>>


If you are going to import from another system, run a Balance Sheet (of 
that other system) as of the date you will be using for the import. That 
will show you what the opening values SHOULD be.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Double Entry of Informal "Loan" & Repayment

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/14/2018 1:57 PM, Keith Lewis wrote:

I'm new to GC, longtime Quicken user. This is a double-entry accounting question rather than a GC 
question-hope that's okay in this mailing list. I made a purchase for a gift w credit card and used 
expenses:gifts to balance. Afterwards, a friend wanted to help with the gift and so paid me half with cash. 
I think I should deposit that cash into assets:wallet and balance with expenses:gift. But isnt the cash from 
my friend income? Does this sound right to you? Now imagine my friend had offered ahead of time to help pay 
for the gift, but didn't immediately have the cash. I think I could record the transactions as above or set 
up a "loan" account to track the "loan". IOW split liability:creditcard -> 
expense:gifts + liability:creditcard -> loan; then when he pays me back, loan -> asset:wallet.Thanks 
for your time,Keith
No, not income but an adjustment to an expense. You (later) learned that 
you were not paying for all of the gift but sharing the cost. So an 
adjustment transaction: (when he pays you)

debit  wallet
   creditgift expense
   description could explain -- say "friend is paying for half the 
gift"


Now let's examine the second case where the friend agreed to do this but 
hadn't yet. In other words, you paid for the gift but he owes you for 
that share of it. I am assuming that you mentioned credit card because 
that is HOW you paid for the gift.


when gift purchased
debitgift expense (for your share)
debitowed by friend (that is an ASSET type account)
 creditcredit card (for the purchase price

when he pays you back that's a transfer between assets
debit   wallet
 credit owed by friend   (that "asset" is now zero)

Michael D Novack




Michael D Novack
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Re: Year end issues

[Mike or Penny Novack]

Let's discuss this (and possible options)

First, you need to understand what "close the books" does do and what is 
does not do. It creates a transaction (or transactions) to zero out 
income and expense accounts to equity. It does NOT remove transactions 
and so will not make your file smaller.


It sounds like what you want is something more like to was in the old 
days of books kept in BOOKS, pen and ink on paper.  What was common at 
the end of each accounting period was to close the old books and open 
new ones. The old volumes were put safely by in case they needed to be 
referenced later.


One of the advantages of software like gnucash is that it can create the 
usual reports without actually closing the books. Easy to reference old 
transactions (previous accounting periods) without having to "bring them 
back" as they would have done in the old days when physical books. But 
suppose you don't want this, you don't want to be seeing all those 
accounts that have become obsolete cluttering up your view, etc. Or are 
worried about the sheer size of the file, etc.


You CAN simulate what was done in the old days when they opened new 
books each period. This is just like when you created your gnucash books 
in the first place. You run a final Balance Sheet report which gives you 
the balances of all of the standing accounts (asset, liability, and 
equity). You create a new set of books, say by exporting the CoA and 
importing that to a new set of books (all accounts zero) and can delete 
any accounts that are obsolete. You then enter the initial values from 
the Balance Sheet << note: I never use the facility to create accounts 
with an initial value but instead with an opening transaction, or rather 
two so each is split on only one side >>


You of course SAVE the old file. If you at some future time want to look 
at old (prior period) transactions you simply ask gnucash to open THAT 
(saved) file instead of the one you are currently using.


Michael D Novack

PS: All of my books are small enough that I have never been tempted to 
do this. The obsolete accounts do not appear in the reports as furnished 
to the boards of the organizations because EDITED first << in other 
words, I do not expect gnucash to produce the final pretty version of 
reports. I have to edit them anyway to add annotations explaining and 
unusual entries so all the editing for "pretty print" etc. can be done 
at that time >>


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Re: Filtered account report

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/16/2018 3:04 AM, AC wrote:

Thanks but not exactly simple in my case as there are over 1000
transactions to the loan interest expense account.  The report was
mainly for my own curiosity which is why I'd rather use an algorithmic
method to generate the report.

This is an important point (what David just said)

With any of these accounting packages you have to plan the CoA so that 
the information you need will be available. Essentially what you are 
saying is:


"I did not design the CoA in such a way (a parent "loan interest" under 
which children "loan 1 interest", "loan 2 interest", ..) that I 
could see the interest for each loan separately. How can I NOW obtain 
that information?"


The simple answer is, you can't. But that leads to a discussion about 
being alert to changes needed in our books. Such changes might be easy 
at the time but very difficult later. Using this situation as an 
example, you might have started out with just one loan, so natural to 
have just "loan interest". It is when first entering transactions 
related to a second loan that we need to notice "oops, won't be able to 
track the interest of the two loans separately" and so you:

1) rename "loan interest" to "loan 1 interest"
2) create parent account (placeholder) "loan interest"
3) make "loan 1 interest" a child of this account.
4) create "loan 2 interest" a child of this account.
If you realized this fairly speedily after loan 2 came into existence, 
not a lot of work re-entering transactions. But if you wait till there 
are hundreds or thousands that would need to be fixed .


Michael D Novack


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Re: Filtered account report

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/16/2018 6:07 PM, AC wrote:


Yes except that's not how things started or ended up.  Many of the
transactions are from before GnuCash so they are historical records that
imported that way.  Second, I really wasn't paying attention to the
interest in any way other than to record it for record keeping as part
of a transaction mainly because I was more interested in the portion of
the payment that went to the principal and tracking the remaining amount
of payoff.

There were already over 500 transactions at the time I imported into
GnuCash for the first time.  So it's a bit off base to suggest I should
have "paid attention" when setting up the CoA when I didn't have a CoA
due to the original software.  I was lucky enough to get it to import
with few errors as is.
I thought I was clear enough that this situation is something that we 
ALL had to keep alert for to prevent it from happening. To PREVENT this. 
Obviously not going to help in retrospect for any particular person. For 
example, I now tell people "keep your backups in a separate location" 
--- that did not help me with backups I made before our 2006 house fire. 
I was not being critical that you had not done the separation for 
whatever reason. Sometimes these things are completely beyond our 
control to have foreseen << like a change in tax codes >>


However, you raised another issue, when should we import data from 
another package and when maybe not (create a new set of books under 
gnucash going forward). Factors I would take into account:
1) Is the old package still available on my machine to (re)produce 
historical reports and for viewing historical data? If not, obviously 
you want to import. But if so, you have a choice, and decide based on 
how hard to use the old system for that purpose vs how hard to clean up 
after import.

2) How changed would be your CoA now from your CoA then.
3) Do you have the necessary skills to write a program to modify the 
file being imported.


FIXING the sort of problem you had really a matter for a pro. For 
example, you describe being able to parse externally. Getting the 
computer to do that, parse*, create a batch of correction transactions 
(writing  a special ad hoc program to do that) and bringing in that 
batch is precisely the sort of thing I used to get paid to do. Except it 
would have not been 500 but 5000 or even 50,000 so would have taken a 
whole army of folks sitting at their terminals to do the corrections by 
hand. IF faced with your (initial) problem and realizing that the data I 
was about to import had these transactions all going to one interest 
account but I wanted them separated, I would have written something to 
alter the .cvs or whatever before the import. But not expecting you to 
<< you didn't do this sort of thing for your living; I did >>


I should perhaps add that USUALLY even I cannot see in advance that I 
should split an account. When the first "not quite fitting" transaction 
appears, it might seem an oddball case, so you ignore. It is when 
several others appear you realize not so oddball after all. So even I 
have to correct a few transactions. For example, one of the 
organizations existed more than a decade before the first fixed asset, 
and then several more years before there was a second << and so the need 
to split >>


Michael D Novack


* If you can look at them and tell which, then presumably a program 
could be written to do the same thing.

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Re: Accuracy / Rounding issues - Difference between gnucash and broker account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/27/2018 4:54 PM, Pawel Wocjan wrote:

Hi,



Are there some general guidelines how to choose accuracy for fractional 
shares/price etc? Has anybody experience such minor discrepancies between 
his/her broker account and gnucash?

Thank you for your help,
Pawel
   
There is no way to do this (guarantee agreement). Whenever rounding is 
involved, it matters not just the particular rounding rule used but WHEN 
rounding is applied, because rounded(A) + rounded(B) does not 
necessarily = rounded (A+B).


One of the things I used to do (in my working days) was calculate the 
necessary "fuzz" for compare operations necessary not to have these 
small "errors" (different rounding process) cause mismatches.


Michael D Novack

PS: You can manually adjust by including a child account for "rounding 
errors" which you might name that or "fuzz".

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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/27/2018 10:25 PM, Matt Graham wrote:

Nice! It seems like we are getting somewhere. I am convinced that the process 
we think of budgeting where we are saving up for something is really a case of 
segmenting money within a sub-account. And it looks like Gnucash is already 
happy with this kind of situation - with the include sub-accounts in the 
recociliation window.
Not exactly. This is a case where the term "budgeting" is being used in 
different ways meaning different things. Budgets my be legal 
(organizations, government entities) or advisory (personal, business) 
though of course businesses might have requirements to set aside funds 
<< might be in the terms of a loan, etc. >>


ONE way of doing this is with liability accounts (typical -- account for 
amounts needed for taxes) but that method can also be used for "reserve 
funds" <<  I deal mainly with non-profits where "restricted funds" are 
common >>


Note that partitioning of a checking account in this way earlier 
described is still just "advisory" as it would NOT prevent you from 
writing a check for more than the balance remaining in the unrestricted 
portion of the account. Just you can't do that without seeing that you 
are doing it.


Michael D Novack


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Re: Subaccounts [WAS Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets]

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 1/28/2018 8:11 PM, Matt Graham wrote:
 When you look at what liabilities really are, Adrien and I 
concluded on this thread that this situation (segmenting money for 
future) is really using a separate asset account. After all - creating 
a liability INCREASES your cash available. ...
Yes, the problem precisely, we aren't assigning the same meaning to 
"available" and "liability"


But your example of what you would like to see:

Template transactions (I'd probably call them "Triggerred transactions", but it 
doesn'tmatter) sound awesome. As someone else highlighted, there are implementation 
difficulties to consider, but I dont think that it would be too onerous.

In terms of spending from another account but recording against a sub-account, 
its easy:
Dr Exp whatever account
Cr Cash I pay for something awesome
Dr Parent account the amount I paid
Cr sub-account the amount I paid

SPECIAL CASE of a GENERAL requirement. The special case might be easy to 
implement BUT in general the amounts are NOT going to be the same.

This is actually a fairly common situation for me, say one of the organizations 
SELLS a tee shirt (fundraising, but tee shirts might also be being given away 
to volunteers).
Db   Cash
Cr   Sales
Db   Cost of goods sold
Cr   Tee shirt inventory
<< the shirts might be being sold for $20 but cost the organization $7 >>

Or, and though this is common with our restricted funds (not exactly matching) I will give 
an example precisely for your situation. You socked away into this reserve $100/mo toward 
the annual renewal of your car insurance based on your ESTIMATE of what that annual bill 
will be. But when the bill arrives it is for $1150 or $1250. In both cases you pay the bill 
and release the restriction, yes? << in one case, you had more in the fund than 
needed but it still can be released to general purposes, in the other you used all of the 
fund AND had to add some general funds >>

Michael D Novack


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Re: Future allocated money vs Budgets

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/4/2018 1:21 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:

Looks nice. My main concern with these "shadow accounts" is that they will,
by default, be counted in the Net worth reports, income reports, etc, and
must be manually deselected every time.

In my view budget allocations are technically "outside the books" and must
therefore ideally be recorded in ways that don't affect the everyday data
and reports.

The problems people have been discussing are really "work flow" and "how 
done" issues.


a) As noted in the second paragraph, technically "outside the books". So 
ONE solution is to do just that, a separate set of "books" (gnucash can 
handle many). That obviously would mean no effect on reports run against 
the regular books. And of course that could be using the built in budget 
facility.


b) But it seems most would prefer not having to switch books to record 
the effect on budget items resulting from the real transactions. I can 
think of MANY ways to put the "budget" accounts so that they would have 
no net effect on reports, total of the parent standing accounts (asset, 
liability, equity). What I can't see is any easy way to "automate" 
because IN GENERAL users, especially non-organizational users, will be 
ADJUSTING budget allocations on the fly as needed << don't need a vote 
of some board to authorize that >>


c) Some people seem to be confused about "liabilities" thinking that 
they NECESSARILY represent an actual debt (the most common use) instead 
of possibly representing a CONDITIONAL debt. I will note that some of 
the things I have mentioned in this context (especially for non-profit 
orgs) may be changing << I have heard that new accounting practice will 
allow some restricted funds not to be considered liabilities 
until/unless something prevents their use for the intended purpose 
instead of as now from the get go as a conditional debt* >>


d) IF I wanted to put the "envelopes" in my main books, I could put them 
under assets, liabilities, or equity WITHOUT affecting the totals of any 
of those. Thus:

   Budget (the parent)
 Total allocated funds(debit side?)
   Allocations   (credit side?)
   Each individual envelope
   << all that matters is that Total Allocated Funds and 
Allocations be on opposite sides --- which means the total for the 
parent "Budget" will be ZERO >>


Michael D Novack

* In my practical experience, donors of conditional gifts or grants 
often will agree to a change of use, extension of time to use, etc. But 
I have never had to deal with governmental grants, etc. which I suspect 
would be less forgiving. But I also have practical experience where ALL 
there is is budget accounting << the organization or committee has no 
funds in hand --- the budget represents what will be reimbursed if the 
committee votes to authorize an expenditure and some committee member 
goes out and spends the money --- and then submits the receipts to the 
town treasurer for reimbursement. The committee must track "how much do 
we have left to spend" or somebody will be out of pocket >>



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Re: Copying transactions from an account to the general ledger

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/6/2018 12:15 PM, Mike Donovan wrote:

Having recorded many transactions to the cash account, I would like to copy 
these to the GL (which has no transactions currently) and then use the GL for 
recording all future transactions. Can this be done? Thanks.

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

Review the intro to double entry bookkeeping.

a) The cash account IS a ledger account.
b) Each transaction you entered (entering from the cash account) had 
ANOTHER (at least one other) account associated with it, the other side 
of the transactions. If you did not specify that other account, gnucash 
used the account "Imbalance" as a (temporary) default account. You need 
to FIX each of these (change to the correct account)
c) Gnucash only has a ledger. The journal is virtual (you can run a 
report that will show it to you).


Michael D Novack
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Re: Cash Flow View

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/6/2018 11:56 AM, Sean Ford wrote:

Hi,

Does GnuCash include a "cash flow" view, i.e., a simple line showing
projected balance over time based on recurring expenses and income?

Thank you!
___

 Are you asking whether gnucash can produce cash flow reports?

I am seeing a lot of questions about whether gnucash includes various 
"views". With the context making me suspect that what is meant is "can 
gnucash show me this WITHOUT my having to run the reports?"


Users new to gnucash should probably take a look at all of the reports 
that are included, see what they do under their various report options. 
You actually have to look as in some cases the name of the report could 
be misleading (example: "Income Statement" isn't just income but what is 
otherwise known as "Profit and Loss", Statement of Revenues and 
Expenses, etc.)


Michael D Novack
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Re: Keeping track of sales and expenses for a specific craft show

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/7/2018 12:22 PM, C M Reinehr wrote:

Ravenkwill,

I would suggest setting up your chart of accounts to record the 
revenues & expenses and then use the notes field of each entry to 
identify the specific craft show. Later, you can then use the notes 
field as a filter when running profit & loss reports, or specific views.


CMR 
 And I (putting on my "business analyst" hat for a moment) would ask a 
number of questions about the information desired to be answered BEFORE 
discussing "how to implement".


a) What is the volume of transactions for each fair? How likely the same 
fair to be attended for a number of years (before being able to decide 
whether THAT ONE with while)


b) To what extent want to be able to report the totals of certain 
expenses that can be fair related but also not. Thus taking just hotels 
for an example, might also use on vacations.


The point is, there can be multiple WAYS of doing these things, reports 
with fancy filters can extract information, BUT there are other 
considerations like clutter in main books, likelihood of data entry 
items < if you have under "hotels" a child for each event, can 
accidentally stick a transaction to the wrong one >   The which way 
easiest, which way less error prone, which way nothing special to do, 
which way less duplication of effort entering data, etc. choices cannot 
be intelligently made until these things have been considered. There are 
trade offs.


Michael D Novack

PS: Some examples might help. Thus, an organization of which I was 
treasurer was going to host the annual gathering for the organization. 
The event was going to have it's own bank account and for a period of 
two months there would be hundreds of transactions related to the event 
and then nothing ever again (or at least not for many years when the 
local might again host the national gathering). That was sort of a no 
brainer for choosing the "separate set of books" solution.  Why?
1) There would be very few transactions between the (local) 
organization's books and the event books.

2) No special reports (special filters) would  be needed.
3) Would be a great deal of "clutter" in the local's books << and yes 
you can hide that, but why have to hide >>
4) The national organization's treasurer would need access to the books 
(of the event)
BTW, take a close look at that one. Suppose what your org did (as a 
major activity) was put on events for other organizations. Do you not 
see that "separate books" would make it a LOT easier to show the 
treasurer's of these organizations JUST the data which belonged to them,.

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Re: How to relate Transfer Sales to Cash to Customer?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/8/2018 4:00 PM, Greg Feneis wrote:

I suspect Gnu Cash needs a point of sale (POS) module to handle this
functionality.


I think not exactly a module withing gnucash.

What gnucash would need is the ability to accept a feed from a (typical) 
POS system. Whether a POS system is practical as an open source project 
is another matter. Many (most?) that exist are tied to some company's 
cash registers, may be scanning in customer ID << I am going by what I 
see out there as a customer >>


Keep in mind, in the usual situation, you would NOT be wanting the sales 
clerks (who are ringing through customers) to have any access to the 
accounting system.


Open source POS (and inventory, see below) more practical based on the 
assumption that instead of a cash register would be a general purpose 
small computer the sales clerk used. Would be an app where a customer 
number was entered, purchases one at a time (know what is taxable), 
total the bill and note how paid (cash, check, credit card). Then feed 
the accounting and inventory systems.


Michael D Novack

PS: Interfaces with an inventory system similar. There, ideally you 
would want POS to feed inventory as well as "general ledger" and 
inventory to feed general ledger. In our case, the general ledger system 
would be gnucash.

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Re: RFP: Generic Comparison Report

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/10/2018 12:52 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

David,

As I noted in another thread, I'm interested in tackling this. I have a few
other ideas I want to try as well. (multi-step Income Statement and
Analytic/Activity style Income Statement)


Let me jump in hear a moment.

The "standard report" in my line of country (non-profits) is TWO periods 
side by side (generally two years, this year's annual vs last year's 
annual "Statement of Revenues and Expenses" and of course the 
corresponding ending Balance Sheets.


I did NOT write a custom report to do this in spite of the fact that I 
made my living doing software for a "financial" and was reasonably 
fluent in LISP << and Scheme is a LISP dialect >> That's because I 
expected the condition under which such a report to "line up properly" 
in the horizontal sense to be the exception rather than the rule. It is 
RARE that two consecutive years have NO changes to the CoA << no 
accounts renamed, no new accounts added, no account split into two, etc >>


In other words, since going to have to fiddle a bit anyway, doing this 
manually (export the constituent reports form gnucash and then 
reassemble the pieces with my favorite editor) and making decisions how 
to deal with the changes to the CoA as they become apparent)


Michael
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Re: One account for both Income and Expenses possible?

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/11/2018 9:03 AM, Robert Heller wrote:

At Sun, 11 Feb 2018 08:15:56 +0100 Jeff Abrahamson  wrote:
... transfer
"money" from the vegetable account to a bank account (income when you sell
vegetables) and when you transfer money from a bank account to the vegetable
account (an expense when you buy vegetables). *I* do this which my inventory
of thumb drives. GnuCash does not have "inventory" accounts or any way of
dealing with inventory as such
Inventory MANAGEMENT is something else (gnucash lacks this but that 
belongs in an inventory system*, not "general ledger".


But you are saying that gnucash does not support inventory value and 
cost accounting and that is simply not so.


Let's say incidental to its main activity an organization sells various 
things (tee shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) as a fund raiser. You create 
under Assets (after "current assets" and "fixed assets") a parent 
"Inventory of goods". Under that might be accounts (more likely also 
parents as batches of goods might have different basis) for "tee 
shirts", "coffee mugs", etc. When the organization buys a new batch of 
tee shirts that is a debit to "tee shirts" (or as I mentioned, perhaps 
"tee shirts batch 4" --- the account description can include what the 
unit price was for this batch) and a credit to checking << note: we get 
confused using the supposedly more user friendly terms worrying about 
what sort of "transfer" this is). Each sale of a tee shirt not only 
debits cash and credits "sale of tee shirts" for the sale price but also 
debits "cost of goods sold" and credits the inventory account "tee 
shirts batch N" for the unit cost of batch N << going to be a policy 
decision whether to simply use FIFO or to actually worry about from 
which batch that shirt came. Maybe BOTH come into play. To use your 
example, thumb drives, you might have 8 Gb drives (batches of those) and 
16 Gb drives (batches of those) so you might want under "thumb drives" 
children "8 Gb drives" and "16 Gb drives" and under each of those "batch 
1, batch2, etc. and use FIFO there >>




Michael D Novack

* The data kept here things like "number on hand", "physical location 
where shelved", "reorder point", etc.

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Re: Installation

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/11/2018 10:04 PM, Jonathan Ames wrote:

Thanks, all, for advice. Just not happening, though. I can see the latest
file in a directory, but get "file not found" when clicking on it. By now,
a lot of lost work. Am I correct in assuming that unlike commercial
software, gnucash doesn't save itself back to the application
automatically, even if you "save" automatically? In other words, what
you're paying for is not to deal with the log files, but to save and then
later click on the icon and have it be where and as you left it?

No, "commercial products" are equally unlikely to save the data "in the 
application". Another application MIGHT have some default DATA location 
where it does its saves (I will give examples in a moment) but note that 
this is practical/possible ONLY if able to make the assumption that 
there will be only ONE "data file".


Take something like FireFox (I am intentionally choosing a 
non-commercial app to show you that "commercial" has nothing to do with 
this). When you install the program (well first time run as opposed to 
install) it creates a data directory in the "application data" directory 
and that is where it will store things. It is "first time run" because 
almost all modern operating systems support multiple users. So when 
opened (by a user) it looks in the expected place, if found, it uses 
that data, if not found decides "ah, first time for this user" and 
creates it << that process allowing the user to choose various 
preferences which will be saved there >>


Gnucash cannot do this because it supports MULTIPLE BOOKS. Only some of 
its data can be saved in a common location.


So the first time you save a set of books you have to tell gnucash 
"where to put THIS one" (what to call it, what directory will it live 
in, etc.) Perhaps you are also thinking about the "did not create an 
shortcut icon on my desktop" at the same time. That again is behavior 
more useful IF can assume that there would be only one. If you want 
icons on your desktop acting as shortcuts to your files, create them.


Michael D Novack
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Re: Installation

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 2/12/2018 10:08 AM, David Carlson wrote:

Johnathan,

GnuCash may or may not play well with various cloud storage services 
because of it's insistence (in current releases) on keeping it's 
automatic backups in the same folder as the data file.


Just so understood why it makes sense (to me)  to "insist" the automatic 
backups go into the same directory as the file. It guarantees gnucash 
being able to make up a UNIQUE name for the backups. If you were allowed 
to specify a directory B  in which to put the automatic backups for 
books.gnucash in directory A, what prevents directory B from also 
containing  a file named books.gnucash ?


Yes of course, care by the user could prevent a disaster like that, but 
as somebody who used to get paid to unscramble messes caused by that 
sort of carelessness, absolute prevention is better.


Michael D Novack
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