On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Eric Abrahamsen <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Apr 06 2011, Michael Norrish wrote: > >> On 6/04/11 6:24 PM, Eric Abrahamsen wrote: >>> I'm getting used to the more complex usages of Ledger, and have a little >>> scenario that I hope someone will help walk me through. I'm running >>> Ledger 3. >>> >>> I have a small company with a few employees, we've just gotten started. >>> I'm a terrible boss -- I was unable to pay salaries for the first couple >>> of months. To make it up I paid part of the salaries out of my own >>> personal account. Later our revenue stream kicked in, and I paid myself >>> back for the salaries. > > [...] > >> How about >> >> 2011/01/01: >> Expenses:Salaries:Bob 5000 RMB >> Liabilities:Deferred Salaries >> >> 2011/02/01: >> Expenses:Salaries:Bob 5000 RMB >> Liabilities:Deferred Salaries >> >> 2011/02/20: >> Assets:Bank Account 10000 RMB >> Liabilities:Owe Founder >> >> 2011/02/20: >> Liabilities:Deferred Salaries 20000 RMB >> Assets:Bank Account >> >> 2011/03/05: >> Assets:Bank Account 20000 HKD >> Income:Project1 >> >> 2011/03/06: >> Liabilities:Owe Founder 10000 RMB >> Assets:Bank Account -500 HKD > > Thanks for the quick and helpful answer! I like the usage of > Liabilities, that definitely seems right. I guess I was originally > wondering if there was something I should be doing with effective dates, > because doesn't the above make it look like money is actually changing > places on January and February first? Or am I misreading this? > If I understand correctly
Jan 1 you paid your employees from your personal bank account. You represent this by adding 2011/01/01: Expenses:Salaries:Bob 5000 RMB Liabilities:Deferred Salaries because on Jan 1 Bob was paid 5000 RMB and the money for that payment came from a loan which has to be repaid. Then at some future date you have money in your company account, so you can discharge that liability and you record that in your ledger so. 2011/03/01: Assets:Bank -5000 RMB Liabilities:Deferred Salaries here you pay yourself back the 5000 RMB you owe. If you are doing things in multiple currencies, I suggest reading https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger/wiki/Multiple-currencies where after my accountant reported that my profit and loss didn't match the change in my balance sheet, I had to learn how to properly account for currency fluctuations. The key point is that you have an income stream which is the profit/loss you make from currency fluctuations from when you book an expense to when you actually pay the expense.
