On Wed, Apr 06 2011, Peter Ross wrote: > On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 10:20 PM, Eric Abrahamsen > <e...@ericabrahamsen.net> 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.
No, that was part of the problem -- no one got paid anything until February 20 (they are patient people), at which point I gave them two months' salary. I did want a solution that somehow both indicated when they were *supposed* to get paid, and then when they *actually* got paid. If the repayment to myself could be somehow tied to the actual payments to them, that would be nice, but I don't see how that would happen. So I guess my second question (the first was answered by using a Liability) is how to indicate this date disparity between "supposed to" and "did"… > > 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. This will come in very handy, thank you.
