Chris, If for some reason you don’t want to use the business features and prefer to enter transactions manually, the auto-fill feature helps greatly for this case.
I enter all of my cash expenses with a separate sales tax split. (I’m not in a VAT locale, this is ‘in addition to’ sales tax) The principle should be the same for VAT but the math might vary. If you’re entering a transaction for the same payee, GnuCash will autofill the splits from the last entry for that payee. So if you’ve entered a split for GST, it will show up there. The difference then for each transaction will be your memo, possibly your income/expense account will need to change, and then the actual math, but the GST split will be added for you saving a few keystrokes. In your case, for the item itself, enter the price as a formula and subtract the GST (I’m presuming it is inclusive) as "price / 1+(GST rate)” So if your price inclusive of tax is $2.10 your formula is: 2.10 / 1.05 which will give you your ‘pre-tax’ amount or in this example: $2.00 Then the GST split will automatically “be” the tax. (if you’ve already entered the opposing split) If you want to double check it with a formula (helpful for more complicated entries with multiple other splits) then enter this as “price - (price / 1(GST rate)” So the above example would be: 2.10 - (2.10 / 1.05) Which would result in a GST split amount of $0.10. Of course, these number look easy but the formulas work no matter how ‘messy’ the rate. It isn’t automatic, but it does save time and is very easy to do, especially with practice. Note, if you really need to enter the price for the item including GST, but also want a separate split to break it off to a GST Due or some such account, then you’ll need an additional split with a memo something like “GST/Tax Inclusive” and make it the reverse entry of the item. (so a credit to an expense account or a debit to a revenue/income account) and set its value to the amount of the GST split, thus your transaction will still balance. For example: Cr. Cash $105 Dr. Expense:Supplies $105 -memo “paper" Cr. Expenses:Supplies $5 -memo “GST Inclusive” Dr. Expenses:GST $5 -memo “GST 5%" - or - Dr. Cash $105 Cr. Revenue:Sales $105 -memo “widgets” Dr. Revenue:Sales $5 -memo “GST inclusive” Cr. Liabilities:GST Due $5 -memo “GST 5%" Of course, talk to a local CPA to make sure your reports are reflecting the proper amounts and adjust these entries as needed. These are just rough examples. *Tip - because I pay different tax rates due to purchase location, I include the rate in the memo line for future reference should I need it. This too autofills not just from the previous entry, but if I start typing a name for the different jurisdiction, the previous rate and any other info from the most recent same memo gets auto-filled as well. Also, while you can enter transaction from the General Journal, entering them from the account that the money is going to/from is less error prone. So if you are paying out of your checking account, enter the transaction from there, one of the splits will HAVE to be a credit to the checking account. The others are going to be debits to balance against it. If you are receiving cash funds for example, then enter that in the Assets:Cash register as a debit and the other splits will have to be the offsetting credits. (likely an income/revenue account) The advantage here is you won’t accidentally choose the wrong account to send or place the money, the only variable here is why it was spent or why it was received. Regards, Adrien > On Nov 10, 2018, at 3:09 PM, CHRISTOPHER PEARCE <fernwood...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello all, > > I would like Gnucash to automatically create a split transaction for sales > tax when a taxable product is bought/sold. I deal with a lot of > transactions, and its a pain to manually enter the sales tax for each one. > I'd rather just work within the general ledger and have Gnucash do it > automatically. > > For example, I buy a widget for $100 + 5% GST = $105. I want Gnucash to > automatically create the split, and allocate $5.00 to the GST liability > account. > > Of course, the ability to override the default 5% would be necessary. > > Is what I'm asking for possible? I'm not a programmer, so I realize this > may be a dumb question. > > (Frist time on this mailing list, so apologies if I break etiquette) > > Thanks, > Chris > > > > -- > Chris Pearce > ----------------- > President > Fernwood Tax Solutions > Victoria, BC Regina,SK > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-devel mailing list > gnucash-de...@gnucash.org > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
