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For gold mining companies, the amount of gold that the company has access to but has not yet been mined is accounted for in "reserves". The company can claim a percentage of those reserves as assets, but must spend money to mine them. That is why the market value of those reserves is not entirely reflected in the value of the company. The actual value must ...
58
In my opinion, every person, regardless of his or her situation, should be keeping track of their personal finances. In addition, I believe that everyone, regardless of their situation, should have some sort of budget/spending plan.
For many people, it is tempting to ignore the details of their finances and not worry about it. After all, the bank knows ...
41
If I were you I would simply use a check register, cash, and jars. Check register sheets can be printed online and increased to an appropriate size.
I really like Dave Ramsey's teaching on this. To me it is world class:
Children earn a commission, not an allowance. They earn this commission by doing work. If they don't work they don't get anything. ...
26
I've recently switched over to an allowance system that is attempting to teach my son the value of money, and more specifically, saving money to earn more money. It's a very exaggerated interest-based system, but for a 7 year old it so far seems to be doing the trick.
First, I don't pay him an allowance for doing specific chores. I personally think it sets ...
25
I think the best advice you're going to get on the subject is: If you made $250k in half a year, you definitely have enough to hire an accountant! Get professional help on the subject, and they'll make sure you don't end up getting in any legal trouble.
25
In my opinion, subtenant B should pay 1/4 of the utilities.
Each person consumes 1/4 of the utilities. Normally, each person would pay 1/4 of the utilities. However, Subtenant A has an agreement with the two co-tenants that he doesn't have to pay for utilities (it is included in his rent). This means that the co-tenants get the rent, but need to pay for ...
25
Since she essentially only has a cash register, a simple cash journal should do the job.
Have her do weekly sums and compare with the contents of the piggy-bank.
If she forget to record some spending, she should notice there and still be able to remember. If not have her do daily sums.
20
That's Imbalance-USD (or whatever your default currency is). This is the default "uncategorized" account.
My question is, is it possible to get the "unbalanced" account to zero and eliminate it?
Yes, it's possible to get this down to zero, and in fact desirable. Any transactions in there should be reviewed and fixed. You can delete it once you've emptied ...
19
I had to implement a simplistic double-entry accounting system, and compiled a list of resources. Some of them are more helpful than others, but I'll share them all with you. Hope this helps!
Reference Information
Simplifying accounting principles for computer scientists:
http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-computer-scientists.html
See ...
19
GnuCash uses the extended accounting equation, which is
Assets - Liabilities = Equity + Income - Expenses
Confusingly, the entire right hand side (Equity + Income - Expenses) is also known as Equity if you use the standard accounting equation (as THEAO has pointed out). The equity you're trying to increase is the entire right hand side, and in GnuCash ...
15
I would say that all of the reasons you list in your question are valid, and I would add the following...
You are in the landscaping business, not the accounting business. If you manage everything in spreadsheets, at least one of you has to become the bookkeeper and leave the landscaping to the others. Spreadsheets are "agnostic" in how you use them, so you ...
14
I'd say you have a couple options that differ by the amount of time required.
Option 1: Export your checking/credit card ledgers from your banks for the unaccounted for periods you mention then import them into GNUcash. They won't be categorized, but it's a fairly simple task to go through and categorize the main ones. Anything else can be categorized in ...
13
It's income. Create an income account for it, or use a broader “miscellaneous income” account, depending on how precise you want to be.
13
Coins are assets because its the actual money. Notes are liabilities because the Federal Reserve is obligated to pay money on these notes. Basically a Federal Reserve $1 note in your pocket is an "I OWE YOU" from the Federal Reserve, not money. While a $1 Susan B is not a "I OWE YOU" but the actual $1 worth of currency.
Coins are minted by the US Government,...
12
Social Security isn't an annuity contribution. Without factoring in the doom & gloom or other considerations re Social Security, it should be recorded as a tax for accounting purposes, and you shouldn't attempt to infer some present value.
Once you work a certain number of quarters or years, you're entitled to a benefit set by law. Whether it goes up, ...
11
The obligation is contractual, so you need to read the contract to answer your question.
However, since you paid for the service provided, I see no way they can force you buy any other service from them. They cannot file your tax returns without your explicit consent (on a form dedicated to that, dated and having the numbers matching the return filed - not ...
11
Everyone should keep track of what they spend. When you see how much you are spending on each category of expense, you can make good decisions about how much your life is improved by something vs. how much you spend on that thing.
Everyone makes better decisions when they are informed by accurate information about those decisions. There's no reason why ...
10
If you were a business, all your assets would have a dollar value, so when you sold them you'd decrease the amount of assets by that amount and increase in cash, and if there was a profit on the sale it would go in as income, if there was loss it would count as a cost (or a loss)... so if there was a profit it would increase Equity, a loss then it would ...
10
The IRS demands and expects to be paid tax on all taxable activity, including illegal activity. If they expect drug dealers, hit men, and smugglers to pay tax, they expect you to pay tax on your basement apartment.
The flip side of this is that the IRS keeps reported tax activities confidential. They only share what is required (for example, your taxable ...
9
I just decided to start using GnuCash today, and I was also stuck in this position for around an hour before I figured out what to do exactly. The answer by @jldugger pointed me partially on the right track, so this answer is intended to help people waste less time in the future.
(Note: All numbers have been redacted for privacy issues, but I hope the ...
9
The GnuCash manual has a page with examples of opening new accounts.
The tl;dr is: use the Equity:Opening Balance to offset your original amounts. The further explanation from the GnuCash page is:
4.7.2. Opening Balances
As shown earlier with the Assets:Checking account, the starting
balances in an account are typically assigned to a special ...
9
Accounts track value: at any given time, a given account will have a given value. The type of account indicates what the value represents. Roughly:
An asset is something you control that's worth something, and the value is how much it's worth.
A liability is something you owe someone else, and the value is how much you owe them.
Equity is your net worth: ...
8
The exact heads under which you classify this would vary from country to county. Essentially you would need to treat as;
- The fee charged by Paypal as Expense under some head.
- The taxes would be on profit, so apart from your cost, the fee would also get deducted as expense and tax would be on the profit after this.
8
The cost will be around $300-$500 if you do it correctly it in Florida and can be over a $1,000 if you do it in New York (New York is more expensive due to a publication requirement that New York has for LLC’s).
The price ranges I’ve given include filing, state fees, getting a tax ID number (EIN), operating agreement, membership certificates, registered ...
8
Not correct.
First - when you say they don't tax the reimbursement, they are classifying it in a way that makes it taxable to you (just not withholding tax at that time).
In effect, they are under-withholding, if these reimbursement are high enough, you'll have not just a tax bill, but penalties for not paying enough all year.
My reimbursements do not ...
8
Towards your question #1 The basics of double-entry accounting run off of the equation that (Assets) - (Liabilities) = (Owner's Equity).
In terms of double entry bookkeeping, you always need 1 "event"'s set of transactions to balance the left (A - L) and right (OE) sides of the equation. Here are some examples to show what I mean:
Ex 1: Company starts ...
8
If you run your business on a cash basis: January
If you run your business on an accrual basis: December
Confused? see your CPA
8
Treasury stock is not really represented in the Balance Sheet as a "Treasury stock" line item in the assets. Some companies will break out Treasury Shares as a line item in the "Shareholders Equity" heading of the balance sheet but Apple hides it in the "Shares Issued and Outstanding" counts under the "Shareholders Equity" heading. As of the most recent Q2 ...
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