Well, your question has more to do with general accounting, and less
with ledger in particular.
You could follow a standard chart of accounts, but this would take away
the freedom ledger gives you.
I would propose that you write your examples out in the correct ledger
notation, so we can assess your correct use or not of the tool.
In any case, I'll try to answer from what I understand from your example
(I am no accountant, so take my advice with a grain of salt...):
* I would stick with the 5 typical accounts as the main accounts
(Assets, Liabilities, Expenses, Revenue and Equity) Prepending
something in front of these 5 accounts can make sense if you have
several companies, and want to share one ledger file between them,
but I would generally avoid doing that. Just separate things into 2
different files.
* In the first two lines you are taking money out of an assets account
and putting it into a liabilities account. Several things here:
o Normally you would have a first transaction that goes from
Liabilities to Expenses, to record the invoice you have
received. Once you get billed, you can say you have already had
the expense. Since you haven't paid it, you owe it, hence why it
comes from Liabilities.
o In a second transaction, you would record the actual payment of
the invoice. This would be a transaction from Assets to Liabilities.
* Regarding lines 3-5, Expenses and Assets are both generally
"positive" accounts, so if you paid some banking fees, you would
have to subtract from Assets, and add to Expenses.
* Line 6 and 7 have the same problem as 1 and 2.
* Line 8-12, same as 3-5. You add to Expenses as you do them, no
subtracting.
* In line 13 and 14 you seem to want to record a sale. Some isssues here:
o Expenses are generally positive accounts, and Revenue is a
generally a negative account. You take it from Revenue and you
put it into an Assets account.
o If you want to work with an account_payable account, I guess you
will also want to work with an account_receivable account,
right? That means, you would have to first record an invoice you
made, but haven't gotten paid yet, from Revenue to
Assets:Account_Receivable or similar.
o And once you got paid, you would record a transaction from this
account_receivable account to some other Assets account, bank,
cash or whatever.
* In general, I try to record in Expenses and Revenues WHAT I do with
the money, HOW I spend the money.
* The WHO I owe, WHO owe's me and WHAT have I bought/sold goes to
Assets and Liabilities. That is, In Assets and Liabilities I will
have accounts with provider names, client names, asset names like
(cash, stock, shares, etc...) and liabilities names like (mortgage,
credit card or whatever).
* In Expenses, for example, I will record what type of expense it is
(electricity, gas, etc...) Same for Income, I will record how I got
this money, (from a payroll, hours worked, etc...)
I hope to have shed some light on your doubts...
I would say though that you should start writing down your transactions,
even if it means you will have to do some corrections later on.
Start playing with ledger, and soon enough you will get the hang of it
and will understand what suits you best.
Regards, Stefan
El 07/05/15 a las 11:52, Kev Lau escribió:
Hi,
I am still having difficulties with coming up with a proper mean of
using a ledger for my business. I am hoping that someone here could
see my Ledger and tell me if it looks sound. I don't want to make alot
of entries and later realize I have been doing it wrong. I have read
some material on accounting and feel that I understand how to make
entries(but not sure how well I am organized and structured)
Below is a sample of my hypothetical testing ledger. If you could have
a look and give me some advise/tips I would deeply appreciate it.
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:ASSETS:CASH:CITIBANK US$-12,998.06
;cash recd, debit to cash acct.
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:LIABILITIES:ACCOUNT_PAYABLE:VENTURE_ENTERPRISE US$
12,998.06
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:BANK:CITBANK:FEES US$-19.35 ;cash paid
out credit to cash acct.
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:BANK:CITIBANK:FEES US$-77.41 ;cash paid
out credit to cash acct.
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:ASSETS:BANK:CASH
have
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:ASSETS:CASH:CITIBANK US$-4,998.06
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:LIABILITIES:ACCOUNT_PAYABLE:VENTURE-ENTERPRISE US$
4,998.06
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:BANK:CITIBANK:FEES US$-34.19
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:COST_OF_GOODS_SOLD:TRIA_SOLAR:INV004
US$-12,000.00
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:BANK:CITIBANK:FEES US$-34.19
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:EXPENSES:COST_OF_GOODS_SOLD:DYNO_WORKS:INV004
US$-3,808.00
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:ASSETS:CASH:CITIBANK
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:REVENUE:SALES:MICROSOFT:INV004 US$6,000.00
#GENERAL_ELECTRIC:ASSETS:RECEIVABLES:INV004 US$-6,000.00
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