2010-08-10 GnuCash IRC logs

00:13:05 <Reese1872> i accounted to 10,000 once
00:21:35 <Reese1872> So I have a problem... I created a "Personal Draw" account as a sub of Expenses. I have another income sub account called "Live Music Performances" which I've earned money to. I'm trying to do a transfer of money from the income sub to the personal draw account.... but when I do, the total of the income account increases instead of decreasing.
00:22:12 <Reese1872> Is there something I should be double checking here on the account edit, or is a "transfer" the wrong way to go, or should I be using negative values, or what the heck might I be doing wrong
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00:28:07 <jsled> Reese1872: you basically never need to use negative values.
00:28:42 <jsled> certain account types will invert positive and negatives
00:28:50 <jsled> this is controlled via preference
00:29:21 <jsled> for instance, if you have a credit card balance (owe money to the credit-provider), most people think of this as a positive value, not a negative one.
00:30:19 <jsled> the transaction like you describe would probably be better represented as two transactions: income -> assets, then assets -> expenses
00:30:34 <jsled> income is a sort of "source" account; expenses a sort of "sink" account, if those terms mean anything to you.
00:30:59 <Reese1872> ahhh yeah i think i get it
00:31:02 <jsled> I find the "Transfer" dialog to be ultimately useless … just think about things in terms of Transactions that have a set of Splits that sum to zero
00:31:41 <Reese1872> ok cool... so transaction from income to assets, then from there i transact from assets to that expense account... gonna try it now thank youuuuuuuuu :)
00:31:42 <jsled> also … in double-entry, "credit" and "debit" can be counter-intuitive for various accounts. For instance, adding money to your asset account is actually a "debit" of that account.
00:32:18 <jsled> in gnucash, the registers of the various account types have contextual labels for the credit/debit columns … like "deposit"/"withdrawl" for assets, and "expense"/"rebate" for expense accounts.
00:32:28 <jsled> those can be useful to guide the creation of transactions.
00:33:01 <jsled> we usually recommend people enter transactions from the register of the appropriate asset (checking) or liability (credit card) account; things just make more sense that way, usually.
00:33:24 <Reese1872> nice ok i just figured that out... when doing my transaction from my income account to my assets:checking... i had to use the "charge" column for it to operate correctly
00:33:40 <Reese1872> man you guys and this program is great
00:35:01 <Reese1872> one more quick question... after i did transaction in the income account, filled out the charge field, selected the "to" account or whatever as my assets:checking... now my checking shows a RED amount of $(250.00) instead of a regular-looking amount.
00:35:09 <Reese1872> Is it saying I've done something wrong or is that ok
00:35:42 <jsled> in the register of the asset account, under which column is the value?
00:36:09 <jsled> yeah, "charge" is wrong.
00:36:17 <jsled> income should be in the "income" column.
00:37:04 <Reese1872> income:music register has it as a charge, assets:checking has it as a withdrawal
00:37:23 <jsled> the columns are reversed.
00:37:26 <Reese1872> oh dear
00:40:10 <Reese1872> ok so i'm in my income:music register... if i add a transaction under the charge column (which was what I did before), the balance goes to zero like (i think) its supposed to... if i place it in the income column, my balance goes up (which is wrong right?)
00:40:50 <hasnainj> I have a small retail biz in Australia and want to try gnucash for accounting purposes. Was just wondering if any of you guys can point me to an initial account setup tutorial? Also, is it possible to handle payroll of less 5 employees?
00:41:01 <jsled> no … if you have more income, the balance on your income account should go up.
00:41:35 <jsled> hasnainj: the new account hierarchy setup wizard when you do File > New File has much of that
00:42:20 <Reese1872> the thing i'm trying to do isn't to add income... i have invoices that are already paid which are showing up as balances in my income accounts... so i'm trying to zero them out by transferring them to a "Personal Draw" expense account to show basically that I took the money into my personal account to zero out the gnucash accounts
00:43:37 <hasnainj> Thanks Jsled, can gnucash handle payroll as well? (<5 employees at the moment)
00:44:30 <jsled> there's not first-order user-interface support for it, but http://www.google.com/search?q=gnucash+payroll has some hits
00:47:34 <Reese1872> i still can't figure this out
00:48:54 <Reese1872> I keep trying income:music to do a transaction "charge" with transfer account assets:checking... it shows up as a withdrawal in checking instead of a deposit... but if i reverse the colum, the checking correctly shows a deposit but the income:music then shows income as well and my money goes up instead of zero-ing
00:49:19 <jsled> it's simply incorrect to make it a charge.
00:49:30 <jsled> why do you believe the income account should be 0-valued?
00:49:57 <Reese1872> I'm thinking in terms of the income account having an outstanding balance that hasn't been "processed"
00:50:57 <Reese1872> I guess the thing I'm really looking for... probably in the wrong place... is a way for me to look at gnu-cash and be able to say, "ok cool I have $XXX left that I can do something with.... the rest of $XXX has been moved into my personal checking"
00:52:46 <jsled> just look at your Assets:Checking balance.
00:53:01 <jsled> Income:Salary or whatever is going to grow as a function of how much income you have./
00:53:07 <jsled> it's not usually useful to look at.
00:53:21 <jsled> some people use sub-account of Assets:Checking to do a sort of envelope budgeting.
00:53:33 <jsled> maybe that's useful to you.
00:53:41 <jsled> or the budgeting features themselves.
00:54:10 <Reese1872> hrm
00:54:59 <Reese1872> the problem is i can't even get the balance to go into checking in the first place... its sitting at 0 right now... and when i try to do the transfer as I've been doing... it either A. makes my checking go to a negative balance and zero's the income, or B. adds money to income
00:55:15 <Reese1872> i'm thinking i'm missing some kind of missing step here that would allow me to move money
01:05:55 <jsled> (B).
01:05:57 <jsled> do (B).
01:06:05 <jsled> adding to income is *exactly what should happen*
01:06:18 <Reese1872> oh dang.... i just realized... i'm already doing B automatically
01:06:28 <jsled> if you make $15k a year, at the end of the year, your income account sum should be $15k
01:06:30 <kpreid> Reese1872: it is impossible to create or destroy money, so it's just a question of where you moved it
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01:06:53 <jsled> it's double-entry.
01:07:01 <Reese1872> my parent assets account already shows the money.... its just the sub accounts that show zero... so i think instead of a trans, i need to figure out how to move money from the parent Assets account to its sub-account of checking
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01:07:34 <Reese1872> yeah i understand a little more of what you're saying now that i've finally noticed the parent assets already showed the money
01:11:29 <Reese1872> should i try to move the money from Parent:Assets into Assets:Checking before personal draw? or should i just skip that step and try to move money from Assets to Expenses:Personal Draw?
01:12:23 <jsled> you shouldn't need to move it from Assets to Assets:Checking; it should probably only be in the latter when you book the income
01:12:32 <jsled> so, just the latter
01:13:03 <Reese1872> what do you mean book the income?
01:13:14 <Reese1872> like, actually move the income into the business's checking?
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01:16:25 <jsled> right. "book"="record"
01:16:34 <jsled> or "transact"
01:16:49 <jsled> or "deposit". :)
01:17:29 <Reese1872> coo
01:20:30 <Reese1872> ok so what is the basic good/right way to tell gnu cash to move money to my Expenses:Personal Draw account... such that a zero balance occurs somewhere to reflect that the money has been moved... so i don't keep trying to move old money
01:21:08 * mishehu_ bahs.
01:23:19 <Reese1872> like what i'm hoping for is to be able to do this: 1. Post invoice after a show ... 2. Mark invoice as paid when I'm paid... 3. notice that amount as just sitting somewhere... 4. mark it as paid to my personal checking, or as me as an employee ... 5. Login the next day and be able to easily see that all my money has been moved or whatever into the right places
01:23:52 <Reese1872> that way when i get another job i can start keeping track of how much money goes into my personal, and how much is used on other things related to music (new equipment, merch, etc)
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01:24:00 <Reese1872> are you following me or am i still not making sense
01:25:28 <Reese1872> because as it stands, my assets show a lump sum of what i've earned with no indication of what i did with the money after that
01:25:47 <jsled> your assets will decrease as you make transactions against Expenses.
01:25:57 <jsled> Income will show a lump sum of what you've earned
01:26:41 <Reese1872> ok
01:26:49 <jsled> Assets will decrease as you make transactions against Liabilities, too … say to pay off credit cards
01:27:01 <Reese1872> ok
01:27:10 <jsled> (where the Liability account increased as you made transactions on those credit cards against Expenses, too)
01:27:31 <Reese1872> so it seems like you're saying i should make a transaction against an expense account... should i just open up my expenses:personal draw, and then mark "expense" for an amount?
01:28:06 <Reese1872> shit i tried it and Expenses:Personal Draw auto-selected "Imbalance" as the transfer account
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01:28:15 <Reese1872> ugh with the smilies, pidgin
01:28:16 <jsled> which register are you in?
01:28:39 <Reese1872> right now i'm looking at register --> Expenses: Personal Draw
01:28:53 <jsled> Right. So if you're in that register, you need to select the other side of the account.
01:28:56 <jsled> But don't use that register.
01:29:02 <jsled> use the Assets:Checking Account register
01:29:06 <Reese1872> oh dear
01:29:08 <Reese1872> ok
01:29:36 <Reese1872> oh wait... I have "Personal Draw" as an expense account... is that wrong then
01:29:46 <Reese1872> i was thinking in terms of "it cost the business money to pay me"
01:30:01 <jsled> For your business' books? no, that's exactly right: to the business it's an Expense.
01:30:18 <Reese1872> ok
01:30:23 <jsled> note that I don't actually know how to do business accounting, so maybe it's not actually an expense.
01:30:36 <jsled> But … for your personal books, that'd be Income
01:30:45 <Reese1872> honestly i don't care as long as everything looks accounted for and i can easily figure out what money hasn't been moved yet
01:31:25 <Reese1872> ok so I thought you wanted me to skip the step of Assets--->into--->Checking Account and move right to the step where I go Assets ----> out to ---> Personal Draw
01:32:04 <jsled> not exactly.
01:32:25 <jsled> Income -> Assets:Checking, then Assets:Checking -> Expenses:PD makes sense.
01:32:35 <Reese1872> yeah ok i'll try that
01:32:47 <jsled> Income -> Assets, Assets - > Assets:Checking, A:C -> E:PD doesn't make sense
01:33:57 <Reese1872> oh shoot... so when i marked the invoice as paid, or created the invoice... i should have told it to go inside the checking, not the general assets thing
01:34:08 <jsled> Also, it's not --into--> and --out to--> … every transaction has (at least one) account credited and debited (on each side).
01:34:51 <jsled> that is, there's always an "into" and "out to" account, usually represented by the head and tail of the arrow. you don't need to qualify. :)
01:35:04 <jsled> It might seem pedantic of me to bring it up, but please do trust that it's not.
01:35:06 <jsled> :)
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01:35:41 <jsled> there's a certain mindset to the double-entry accounting. just hoping to reinforce it
01:36:19 <Reese1872> oh yeah i appreciate it... i want to learn the right way
01:36:52 <Reese1872> so... is it correct that I should somehow locate my "paid" invoices, and tell them that they are supposed to have been paid to assets: checking, instead of assets ?
01:36:54 <jsled> if you already have invoices that go into Assets rather than Assets:Checking … that extra Assets -> A:C transaction won't *hurt*.
01:37:01 <jsled> and everything will still balance.
01:37:04 <jsled> it's just not necessary
01:37:09 <Reese1872> ah ok
01:37:32 <jsled> but if you can just go back and fix them, so much the better.
01:37:38 <jsled> it's way late here; I gotta get to bed.
01:37:42 <Reese1872> :(
01:37:45 <Reese1872> thanks for your help so far man
01:38:17 <jsled> good luck, good night.
01:38:18 <jsled> :)
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03:34:38 <Reese1872> ok i'm starting to learn how to move money from income accounts into equity... is it correct to move money from an income account with paid invoices, into Equity: Retained Earnings"? ... or is there a better place to move them
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05:02:15 <Reese1872> i think i finally figured this out
05:03:24 <Reese1872> when i post an invoice, i credit my specific income account for the sale... when the invoice is paid, i set the transfer account to petty cash... that way its already balanced... then i can leave income account as-is, and instead do a transfer from petty cash to expense: personal draw... finally it balances and i can keep track of unmoved money!!!!!
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10:09:01 <jsled> warlord: did you get gnucash-core email from me?
10:09:20 <warlord> When?
10:09:33 <jsled> last last night, late local, so … yesterday?
10:09:46 <jsled> I see it in the archives, but I didn't get a copy, and … while I'd wouldn't expect an immediate response, it's all adding up to "weird".
10:10:13 <warlord> Let me look.
10:11:15 <warlord> No, I did not.
10:11:43 <warlord> ... And the list archives are having issues, too..
10:11:54 <warlord> Maybe something didn't restart properly when the system rebooted?
10:19:06 <warlord> The -patches mbox archive doesn't have lots of stuff for August... WEIRD.
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10:37:53 <warlord> I think I'm going to reboot the server....
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10:46:36 <fell> ah, the server is returning :-)
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10:50:18 <warlord> fell: hopefully. :)
10:50:23 <warlord> @nick gncbot
10:50:23 <gncbot`> warlord: Error: You don't have the admin capability. If you think that you should have this capability, be sure that you are identified before trying again. The 'whoami' command can tell you if you're identified.
10:50:29 *** warlord sets mode: +o gncbot`
10:50:45 <warlord> @nick gncbot
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10:51:06 <warlord> fell: but a sample size of '1' is not necessarily sufficient.
10:52:19 <warlord> jsled: I do see your message to -core in the logs. But I don't see it in my inbox.
10:56:57 <warlord> fell: it looks like the mailing lists are back now, but I suspect we lost emails/data from the beginning of the month.
10:57:48 <warlord> (for what it's worth, the stuff that wasn't in the archive also isn't in my personal mail -- so it was just never delivered)
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11:22:48 <carinhas> Using: r17949M - 2009-12-11, on Mac OSX 1.5.X: some of the report fonts are mangled. I'm using the latest fink version.
11:24:45 <carinhas> I don't see any bug reports for GC/Fink that show this.
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11:45:27 <warlord> xai: Um, could be fink? What's the release#? 2.2.9?
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11:48:21 <xai> Of GC?
11:49:32 <xai> Yea 2.2.9. I can tell that my .gtkrc-2.0 file's choices for "gtk-font-name" make a big difference. And the results are sometimes hit and miss.
11:50:13 <xai> I'll go and ask around the #fink channel too.
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11:52:16 <warlord> xai: any reason you dont use the .dmg?
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11:59:20 <xai> warlord: I did't know there was one. Been using fink for last few years.
11:59:30 <xai> I'll check that one out ASAP.
12:00:47 <warlord> k
12:04:39 <xai> Is there a way to adjust/change the default font in the Aqua/dmg version? .gtkrc-2.0 doesnt seem to work.
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12:20:57 <warlord> xai: I dont know.
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16:21:09 <petit_prince> Hi, using GC 2.2.9 on iMac the button line (with the save, close button etc.) has suddenly disappeared. Can this be repaired by some config? Thanks
16:22:36 <warlord> View -> Toolbar
16:24:28 <petit_prince> Autsh !!! So easy. Thanks for your quick help !!!
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17:17:29 <Scott___> When I void a transaction I'm asked for a reason. How do I look at the reason later on?
17:17:48 <warlord> I dont think the reason is visible in the UI (although I could be wrong)
17:21:47 <Scott___> So there is basically no point in it even prompting for a reason then? :)
17:28:06 <warlord> just because it's not used now doesnt mean it wont be used later
17:48:42 <Scott___> That's what I keep telling myself
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20:24:46 <jmordkoff> hi. newcomer with a question
20:33:29 <warlord> must be a long complicated question to take over 10 minutes to type!
20:34:02 <jmordkoff> sorry...thought nobody was on
20:34:21 <jmordkoff> is there a way to allow me to edit descriptions of reconciled transactions?
20:34:24 *** warlord changes topic to "Free GPL Personal and Small Business Accounting || Please don't ask to ask, just ask and wait! || publically-logged channel || latest stable: 2.2.9 || www.gnucash.org"
20:34:38 <warlord> No
20:34:50 <warlord> Well, not without reversing the reconciliation flag.
20:35:14 <warlord> ... you MIGHT be able to get away with it if you expand the transaction first.
20:35:36 <jmordkoff> I'll try that.
20:35:46 <jmordkoff> seems like a rather onerous restriction
20:38:45 <warlord> well, why are you trying to modify a reconciled transaction?
20:39:07 <warlord> You've clearly already verified that it hit the bank by comparing it to the statement. So why change it?
20:39:17 <jmordkoff> I pull them in from my bank and reconcile to make sure everything is good.
20:39:36 <jmordkoff> But their descriptions are often just a trans number, so then I want to clean that up
20:40:04 <warlord> ummm... you seem to be confusing 'clearing' and 'reconciling'. The latter should only happen when you get your bank statement at the end of the month
20:40:14 <jmordkoff> I type almost nothing...99% is imported
20:40:29 <warlord> Frankly I think that's rather unwise....
20:40:34 <jmordkoff> I reconcile to the online balance almost every time I download. I don't even look at the paper statements
20:40:53 <warlord> Then how do you detect bank errors?
20:41:17 <warlord> You're just reconciling the bank's view of the world against itself. So what's the point?
20:41:18 <jmordkoff> then I compare everything to my receipts and set the Num field
20:41:41 <jmordkoff> true. But since they often screw up the download, it's a necessary step
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20:43:00 <jmordkoff> I've downloaded on say the 10th, and then again on the 15th, but I tell gnucash to go back to the 5th just to make sure I don't miss anything, and sometimes some transactions still fail to download. Reconciling is the only way to detect this and I find doing it often makes it much easier
20:43:34 <jmordkoff> but you're right...I use reconcile for the wrong purpose
20:44:35 <warlord> So that's why you can't do what you want to do...
20:44:47 <warlord> You're not using the tolls as they were designed/intended.
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20:47:03 <jmordkoff> i suppose I should use the cleared flag and the cleared balance
20:48:19 <warlord> Yep
20:48:28 <warlord> That's what it's for!
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22:25:38 <Reese1872> i love gnucash
22:25:40 <Reese1872> that is all
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