> If you?re going to keep using the simplified method, there?s no point to
> changing the account type.
>
> #1 you?d lose expense tracking entirely for anything spent via the card.
> #2 credit card liability would forever be ?negative? (meaning they owe you)
>
> The simplified method works as you have been doing it.
>
> The more real-world method is as follows:
>
> -----
> When making a purchase on credit:
>
> Dr. Expenses:(whatever)
> Cr. Liabilities:Credit Card
>
> When making a payment on the card:
>
> Dr. Liabilities:Credit Card
> Cr. Checking
>
> Now you can track what you spent the money on, as well as how much you owe on
> the card.
>
> ------
>
> With the current method, all you are doing is recording the card payment from
> checking and no specific expense tracking at all. (even though it is listed
> as an expense account, you keep increasing it forever as a generic) But an
> Income Statement will make sense, as will your Balance Sheet
>
> With the switch you are considering, you?d just be doing the second of the
> above two transactions instead of:
>
> Dr. Expenses:Credit Card
> Cr. Checking
>
> Which would remove expenses entirely and make your liabilities look like
> assets since they are negative. (because you keep paying more down, without
> the charge part of the transaction) So both your Income Statement and Balance
> Sheet would be wrong.
>
> It wouldn?t be hard to switch the historical data, especially since it is
> just 240 transactions. (which you?ve already noted you don?t mind altering)
>
> That would *maybe* involve changing the account type. You shouldn?t need to
> alter those 240 transactions, because those splits assigned to the card are
> still going to be debits. (they were payments, now on a liability which is
> correct)
>
> If you can?t just change the type, then create the new liability account and
> then delete the old expense account. When GnuCash asks, choose the liability
> version to assign the transactions to. In a very worst case, you?d have to do
> that manually 240 times, but I think it is going to be more automatic than
> that.
>
> What you would need to do for the card account balance to make sense (and not
> understate your liabilities) is to also enter 240 expense transactions
> between the card and ?something?. (you might also do this as annual
> transactions, or even a single transaction as the sum of everything up to
> this point)
>
> If you don?t know or don?t care what those historical transactions were for,
> you could either leave the expenses:card in place and assign them there, or
> create a ?miscellaneous? account or something similar and then proceed in the
> future with recording actual expenses paid with the card.
>
> You might also be able to download some of that actual history from your card
> company if you think you want it. (I doubt all 10 years though)
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
>
Thank you, Adrien. We can close this.
I'll try your import idea using my Expenses:Credit Card export as a baseline.
First I'll modify it using search and replace for what the Liabilities:Credit
Card account should look like with regard to Expenses:Credit Card, then,
second, I'll modify the Expenses:Credit Card account to remove the checking
account reference - probably I'll just remove all the transactions and allow
them to rebuild when I import the Liabilties:Credit Card transaction. Finally,
I'll modify the original Expenses:Credit Card transactions to reflect them paid
from within the Liabilities:Credit Card account. I'll try all this with the
Transaction ID removed.
If this doesn't work, then I'll fall back to just doing it properly from now on.
I did check my bank's download capability and it's limited to 120 days, though
they do have 10 years worth of monthly statements.
Again, thanks.
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