Martin Blais <[email protected]> writes:
[...]
> It would be useful to build a list of real-world use cases of virtual
> postings and see if they can all be solved without or not - make a
> compelling argument about the need for virtual postings.
I have a fairly simple use-case, the system for which I'm putting
together right now. I have a consulting contract with a company here in
China, and like many local companies they are creative about tax
evasion. My fee is paid in part as "salary", which is taxed, and in part
as spurious "reimbursements" for expenditures, which aren't taxed. I
have to collect official receipts for various things I spend money on,
and then present them to the company each month, and they reimburse me.
I spent a while thinking about how to represent this. I knew I wanted
the reimbursed portion to be a "real" account, under Assets:Receivable,
because that's real value. I also needed to keep track of how much I'd
accumulated in receipts, but decided to use a virtual account for that,
because it isn't "real" value moving from one account to another, it's
simply a catalyst for movement between two other accounts. So now I've
got:
~ Monthly
; Payee: Tax Dodgers, Inc
Assets:Merchants:5231 7000 RMB ; regular salary part
Assets:Receivable 3000 RMB ; receipts
Income:Salary
Then I go to dinner and get a receipt:
04/13 * 华堂
Expenses:Food:Restaurant 143.10 RMB
(Assets:Receipts) 143.10 RMB
Assets:Cash
After a few weeks I have 1920.90 RMB in my virtual receipt account, and
I hand them in (but they haven't paid me the reimbursement yet):
05/04 ! Tax Dodgers, Inc
* (Assets:Receipts) = 0 RMB
Assets:Merchants:5231 1920.90 RMB
Assets:Receivable
When the reimbursement comes through I clear the whole transaction, and
add an aux date.
There are several handy ways to report on this, but in practice all I
need is:
ledger reg --limit 'payee=~/dodgers/' assets:receivable
This is nice because the last line comes out bold on the terminal if the
reimbursement is still pending. At a glance I can see how much I gave
them in receipts, how much they still owe me, and how much in receipts I
still need to gather to get my full salary.
The ugly bits are the duplicate numbers when I collect a receipt for an
expenditure (though I'm working on solving that with automated
transactions), and the fact that I end up manually balancing a virtual
account against a real account. That feels weird, but does no real harm.
Anyway, that's my story!
Eric
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