On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 04:44:37AM -0800, Rick F wrote:
> How does one track in ledger *which* expenses go with which
> reimbursements? I've searched the archives and read the manual, but
> can't find the answer.
>
> Let's say I have a reimbursement account with a bunch of expenses in
> it and a bunch of reimbursements. If that account has a balance, I'd
> like to know which expenses make up that balance. In other words,
> which expenses have I not been paid for? Maybe an expense report got
> lost and I need to track it down. Maybe I just plain forgot to submit
> a particular expense.
>
> This is the exact same problem as tracking invoices. Say I've sent a
> customer lots of invoices and I've received lots of payments, but the
> customer still owes a balance. I need to be able to contact the
> customer and say "Hey, you haven't paid me for invoices x and y yet."
I do this with my expense reports via metadata.
The issue is we need something that spans transactions in order to
link them together, I use an expense report number.
I also add additional metadata for later reporting. Note that the
metadata tags are indented under the Dest account, not under the main
payee line. This means ONLY the Dest portion of the txn has metadata
assigned. None of the Source accounts have metadata.
You can specify metadata for the entire txn under the payee line, or
specifics under an individual posting. It is indentation specific.
So often my transactions look like this.
--duh.dat-----------------------------------------------------------------
2011/11/01 Airplane ride
Source:VISA -$1000.00
Dest:Project
; ER: ER0001
; CATEGORY: Airfare
; PROJECT: Test
2011/11/02 Hotel overnight
Source:VISA -$200.00
Dest:Project
; ER: ER0001
; CATEGORY: Lodging
; PROJECT: Test
2011/11/03 Airplane ride
Source:VISA -$1500.00
Dest:Project
; ER: ER0002
; CATEGORY: Airfare
; PROJECT: Bob
2011/11/04 Hotel overnight
Source:VISA -$250.00
Dest:Project
; ER: ER0002
; CATEGORY: Lodging
; PROJECT: Bob
2011/11/05 Reimbursement
Source:VISA $1200.00
Dest:Project
; ER: ER0001
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then I can start asking intelligent questions.
How much is my balance?
$ ./ledger -f duh.dat bal
$1750.00 Dest:Project
$-1750.00 Source:VISA
--------------------
0
How much is outstanding (not yet reimbursed) on all my ER's?
$ ./ledger -f duh.dat -sEV bal --pivot ER
$1750.00 ER
0 ER0001:Dest:Project
$1750.00 ER0002:Dest:Project
$-1750.00 Source:VISA
--------------------
0
For project cost accounting, how much did I spend on project Bob?
$ ./ledger -f duh.dat -sEV bal %PROJECT=Bob
$1750.00 Dest:Project
How much have I spent on different categories?
$ ./ledger -f duh.dat -sEV bal --pivot CATEGORY
$2950.00 CATEGORY
$2500.00 Airfare:Dest:Project
$450.00 Lodging:Dest:Project
$-1200.00 Dest:Project
$-1750.00 Source:VISA
--------------------
0
I hope this helps!
------------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Adams [email protected]
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