[ale] GnuCash (Was: Re: [OT] Home PBX?)

[Derek Atkins]

Mike,

"mike at trausch.us" <mike at trausch.us> writes:

> On 08/01/2012 12:24 PM, Derek Atkins wrote:
>> I'm not sure where your boundary is between that and "holding accounting
>> knowledge".
>
> Here is an example.
>
> I have a system that I use for tracking hours worked.  Every other
> Monday, when I "run" payroll, I tally the worked hours, and I send an
> email to the payroll processor with the employee ID, number of hours,
> and any one-time adjustments.  They respond to me within about 24 hours,
> with a listing of checks/direct deposit advices and stubs, and reports
> for the current payroll.
>
> I then take the reports for the current payroll, and I enter split
> transactions into GC.  As an example, I'll use my last paycheck; I
> worked 17.4 hours (at $20/hr) for the past two weeks.  (Well, more than
> that, but that's what I recorded.  At this time, I don't pay myself for
> admin overhead, just billable client hours.)  So, the gross pay was
> $348, net pay was $308.78.

Okay, in what format do you get the payroll reports?  Is it paper or
electronic?  If electronic, why don't you convert it (by script) into
QIF and then you can just QIF-Import the results into GnuCash?  This
should greatly simplify your data entry.

> (Also note that the following process requires some... reworking.
> Mostly in that I haven't structured the accounts properly for certain
> types of things to show up on the appropriate reports in the appropriate
> places, and I plan on fixing that in the next week or so.)

Good reporting is dependant on good data layout.  :)

> I then go to my "E:Wages and Compensation:Payroll:Michael B. Trausch"
> account (I'll call this "E:WC:P:MBT" below), and in that account, I
> enter a split:
>
> Account				   Debit	  Credit
> E:WC:P:MBT			  348.00
> L:AP:Federal Payroll				   33.59
> L:AP:GA Withholding				    5.63
> A:Checking					  308.78

For the record, I find that it's always easier to create a transaction
from an Asset or Liability account.  To *my* mind, the transaction makes
more sense there.  When you enter a transaction from an Income or
Expense account the numbers are kinda backwards which tends to confuse
me (and more often than not confuses most people).

However yes, this looks about right for your payroll assuming you are
entering your taxes yourself.  When I did payroll myself I just used
Ex:Gross Payroll because I let my payroll processor handle all my tax
filings for me.

> When the payroll company takes out the taxes from my checking later, I
> create the entry to debit A/P and credit checking.

Makes sense.  In my case it all came out in one pull.

> This situation can be abstracted, making it possible for a person to
> simply enter the numbers from the payroll report, and the server has the
> logic to turn those numbers into the appropriate accounting entries so
> as to be able to accurately record the transaction.

Absolutely!  This could easily be done for your case.  However I do not
believe that it is an easily generalizable solution.  You would
necessarily need at least some way to configure on a case-by-case bases
the accounts that would be touched.

> The downside is that most situations have to be abstracted by
> themselves: there isn't a generic way to hide all accounting things from
> all situations at all times.

Exactly!

>      But I can go in and do things with the
> accounting system that the server doesn't know how to do yet (right now,
> that's everything!) and eventually, as I teach the software on our
> server to handle these things correctly, I transfer responsibility from
> myself to the software.  At that point, anyone in the business with the
> authority to do so can take the report from the payroll company and fill
> in the appropriate spaces in the application on our company's server, et
> voilà!  Someone who doesn't know (or care) which accounts are involved,
> or what a debit or a credit is, can get the payroll entered.

As I said, it's certainly doable.  But I don't think GnuCash would be
the right place for it necessarily only because it's something that
would need to be configured for every business.  Then again it could
just be left open (like the Tax Tables, Customers, Vendors, Billing
Terms, etc) for you to fill in.

> 	--- Mike

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available