I don't want to speak on his behalf, but I think his concern is a bit different. In your example, I think he wants his checking balance to reflect that he has $1000 less than the actual amount. Because at any moment, that check could be cashed and he needs to ensure he is setting it aside so that money is not spent (and also I guess he wants to recognize it that way for tax purposes).
Your example does certainly make that possible, but it requires you to do two queries and then subtract Liabilities:Payable from Assets:Checking. It's a bit of a hoop to jump through. I'm not an accountant, but I think from an accrual accounting point of view, he also would want to recognize that money as being gone from his bank account the moment the check is sent out. Again, don't want to speak on his behalf, but that's how I interpret it. On Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 3:56 PM Stefano Zacchiroli <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Jonathan, nice to read you here! > > On Tue, Apr 16, 2019 at 12:03:39PM -0600, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > > OK, for purposes of illustration, imagine that we send a check for, > > say, $1000 to an author on December 20; they cash it on January 4. > > The statement from the bank at the end of December will not include > > that check, but we know that we have $1000 less than the bank thinks; > > that money is spent. The lower balance is what I was referring to as > > the "real" balance - the amount of money we actually have. > > The traditional way of tracking this in Beancount/Ledger (and, in fact, > in double-entry accounting with accrual basis) would be: > > 2018-12-20 * "author payment" "Mr Foo Bar" > ; cheque: "12345678" > Expenses:Writing 1000.00 USD > Liabilities:Payables -1000.00 USD > > 2019-01-04 * "cashing in author cheque" "Mr Foo Bar" > ; cheque: "12345678" > Liabilities:Payables 1000.00 USD > Assets:Checking -1000.00 USD > > Unless I'm misunderstanding your needs, this allows to verify at any > point in time both (1) the amount of money you are supposed to have in > the bank (by querying Assets:Checking) and (2) what you called the > "real" balance, by querying Income/Expenses over the year of > interest. ... or any variations of it you might need: a common one is > your Net worth, i.e., Assets - Liabilities. > > I've never used a GUI accounting tool, nor I'm an actual accounting > expert. But what I'm guessing from the conversation here is that the > accounting systems you're used to actually do the above, but "hide" the > two transactions behind a single transaction with a "cleared" flag, > whose state changes are timestamped and monitored by the system. > > > This is not to say that Beancount is or isn't suitable for specific use > cases (yours or others). I see value in both "low level" accounting > tools like Beancount (and I've enjoyed learning more about accounting > theory thanks to that) and in higher-level ones that focus more on other > aspects of accounting. Take your pick :) > > > Cheers > -- > Stefano Zacchiroli . [email protected] . upsilon.cc/zack . . o . . . o . o > Computer Science Professor . CTO Software Heritage . . . . . o . . . o o > Former Debian Project Leader & OSI Board Director . . . o o o . . . o . > « the first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club » > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Beancount" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/20190417125602.pdcdofpgkdqfsdhg%40upsilon.cc > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/CAOHSxbnE_iEN_QNevfUkkkcDSqogLQ6np0UdshqH%3DY5W3aJ6tQ%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
