2011-09-22 GnuCash IRC logs
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07:54:10 <moldy> blathijs: ok, thank you
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08:45:05 <warlord> ttt: That is very odd
08:45:23 <warlord> I would expect custom check formats to work the same as the preconfigured formats.
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15:49:55 <joshua> Soo... I'm setting up a very unusual set of accounts for our community.
15:51:00 <joshua> We've got this set of Cash accounts called Funds (such as Food, Agriculture, Legal, Medical, Planning, etc)....
15:51:51 <joshua> and I've got a set of Expense accounts called Expenses, which have sub-accounts which mirror the funds, so we have Expenses:Agriculture:Fuel, Expenses:Agriculture:Seeds...
15:52:43 <warlord> Okay..
15:53:03 <joshua> with each Fund (Funds:Agriculture, Funds:Food, Funds:Power, etc.) having it's own set of Epense accounts, most with Fuel, but specific to each kind of endeavor.
15:53:19 <joshua> We are now operating, as business, a local sawmill.
15:53:40 <joshua> and I am struggling to figure out how to best incorporate this into our accounting... :)
15:53:59 <joshua> I must say I have been really enjoying this program. :)
15:54:47 <warlord> Well, first, let me ask why you have different "Fund" accounts? I guess it's more for "bucket budgeting"?
15:55:55 <joshua> I've also created a set of "In Hand" Cash accounts, with a sub-account for each person, so when they take money from a fund to go somewhere and spend it on stuff, it shows who's "In Hand" has how much, then when then go through their reciepts, each goes from In Hand:Joshua (or whoever) to Expenses:Agriculture:Seeds (or whatever). :)
15:56:16 <joshua> warlord: It's set up as funds because that's the way the community already organized things.
15:56:26 <joshua> I've never heard the term bucket budgeting, but it sounds accurate enough.
15:56:40 <joshua> we budgeted for the year, so much to agriculture, so much to food, so much to power, so much to water.
15:56:47 <joshua> so each of these activities could have the funds to carry on.
15:56:57 <warlord> Right, that's "bucket budgeting"
15:57:04 <warlord> Sure. So what's the question?
15:57:09 <joshua> and so far I've gotten gnucash to beautifully mirror our money flow.
15:57:22 <joshua> well... my question is about accounts payable and accounts receivable...
15:57:48 <joshua> So... we operate this sawmill, and for each board foot we mill, we OWE $.60 / board foot.
15:57:57 <joshua> but we don't actually pay that in cash.
15:58:22 <joshua> we pay it back in lumber at a price of about $.30/bf.
15:58:34 <joshua> and also sell it at different rates to different people.
15:59:12 <joshua> so the Mill fund has money, and it buys supplies as needed... and amasses an asset, of lumber itself.
15:59:28 <joshua> (which has values that depend on what we sell it for).
15:59:39 <warlord> i think i follow..
15:59:55 <joshua> internally, the other funds, can buy the wood at $.20/bf, to keep the mill fund slightly growing, and covering our costs.
16:00:06 <joshua> and here's another complication!
16:00:26 <joshua> the $.15/bf is supposed to include gas, maintenance on the mill, logs, etc...
16:00:35 <joshua> but we often have to buy gas because there isn't any there.
16:01:05 <joshua> the expense that we spend in gas needs be balanced against what we owe in wood.
16:01:47 <joshua> as you can see it's getting kindof complicated, and I'm not sure how to approach it. I've created an Accounts Payable account called Debt:Jerry
16:01:56 <joshua> to show what we owe for the overhead of milling.
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16:03:06 <joshua> I had it as an Expense:Mill:Jerry account, but it's not an expense until we PAY it (in wood), so I've created Debt:Mill:Jerry as Account Payable.
16:03:18 <joshua> but here's the problem...
16:04:16 <joshua> what I did was create transactions SPENDING money from Funds:Mill -> Debt:Jerry... but now value (wood) is being created, so somewhere it has to show as income somewhere...
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16:04:34 <joshua> so I have an Income:Mill
16:04:42 <warlord> First, you should only use the A/* account types if you're using the business Invoice/Bill features..
16:04:51 <warlord> And you should never enter transactions by hand into A/* accounts
16:04:57 <joshua> oh
16:05:02 <joshua> well, glad I came on here to ask. ;)
16:05:10 <joshua> I wasn't thinking I really need to use any of that.
16:05:15 <warlord> If you want to do it by hand then just use an Asset or Liability
16:05:39 <warlord> (GnuCash expects lots of ancillary data in the A/* accounts that you cannot enter by hand)
16:05:54 <joshua> I just want to be able to easily see what we owe and spend and actually have in cash... the Funds:Mill supposed to be the actual cash holding.
16:06:01 <warlord> Here's a question I would ask you: how would you account for this using Pen & Paper?
16:06:41 <joshua> well, I'm not terribly sure, I'm not particularly experienced at accounting. :)
16:07:08 <joshua> I'm fairly good with spreadsheets and could improvise something... but we have all the rest of the community accounts in there going well, and it would be great to keep this incorporated. :)
16:07:12 <warlord> Not to sound glib,but you might want to figure that out before figuring out how to do it in gnucash.
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16:11:30 <warlord> Sorry, have to run for a few minutes. Should be back shortly.
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16:42:06 <warlord> okay, back.
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17:03:26 <joshua> can I create custom currencies?
17:08:47 <joshua> when I owe more, as in a Liability, does that mean lower numbers, decreasing the account balance?
17:08:56 <joshua> or increasing the account balance meaning owing more?
17:12:33 <warlord> No, you cannot create custom currencies. You can, however, create custom commodities and store them in a stock or mutual fund account (e.g. BdFt)
17:12:38 <smw> joshua, with liabilities bigger = owe more
17:13:04 <smw> joshua, so when you pay off a credit card, it goes down
17:17:37 <joshua> argh! when something is produced at a cost that is owed, the libalities increase, and an asset also increases! what decreases?
17:18:05 <smw> joshua, when you make money, your income increases and your assets increase!
17:18:25 <smw> joshua, liabilities are inherently negative.
17:18:42 <smw> joshua, think of a loan. You get more assets and more debt at the same time.
17:18:44 <warlord> joshua: nothing. Asset = -Liability. The should both increase.
17:19:09 <joshua> hmmm...
17:19:22 <warlord> if you think about it in Debit/Credit terms, you are still debiting one side and crediting the other
17:19:25 <smw> joshua, and warlord is much more succinct...
17:20:13 <warlord> gnucash just does you a favor and sign-swaps the debits and credits of some accounts to make more "sense", otherwise liabilities would always be negative, which would be "weird"
17:27:51 <joshua> aha... I had some transactions backward, makes much more sense now.
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17:34:46 <joshua> warlord: how do I create a custom commodity?
17:34:56 <joshua> the only option I see is this "smallest fraction"
17:35:22 <warlord> Create a new account, set the account type to Stock or Mutual, then you can select the commodity and *there* you can create it.
17:45:37 <joshua> Hmm... well, now I've got an Asset increasing as our debt increases... which is great.... however, now when we sell wood, we sell it for more than we pay for it, so if transactions debit the asset and credit the cash account (or other asset), then because it sold for $.60/bf and cost $.15/bf the Assets:Lumber account will keep going down.
17:47:06 <warlord> joshua: that's called "capital gains". You need to account for that.
17:49:39 <joshua> hmmm... rtfm-ing...
17:54:17 <joshua> still rather confused...
17:54:41 <joshua> so far my Assets:Lumber account has the cost of the lumber.
17:54:51 <joshua> so I should make that an Assets:Lumber:Cost account?
17:55:14 <joshua> and then different accounts in Lumber for each rate we sell it at?
18:03:48 <joshua> it's really inventory handling I'm trying to do, I see now.
18:07:46 <warlord> Yeah, you're doing inventory (which gnucash is NOT good at)
18:08:37 <joshua> right...and I guess I could just leave the Assets:Lumber account to make no sense, cause the way I have it now, I think everything makes sense except that account, since it'll keep dropping as we make more and more income...
18:08:45 <warlord> If you want to do it all as $ you can. When you sell the Lumber you enter a split transaction: Debit cash, credit A:Lumber for the cost, and credit Income:Lumber for the rest (profit)
18:08:49 <joshua> unless I split EACH transaction and figure it out manually.
18:09:22 <joshua> that sounds about the best it's going to work.
18:09:39 <warlord> Yes, you would need to figure out the cost/profit split manually each time.
18:32:10 <joshua> okay... that works well enough.
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