On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 2:50 PM, Brian Exelbierd <b...@pobox.com> wrote: > On Wed, Jan 18, 2017, at 09:39 PM, o1bigtenor wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Brian Exelbierd <b...@pobox.com> wrote: >> > On Wed, Jan 18, 2017, at 05:34 PM, o1bigtenor wrote: >> >> Greetings >> >> >> >> I have been using ledger-cli for a number of years and it works and >> >> that is very good (even though most would view my grasp of the whole >> >> project is poor (I've learned to do what I need to do and nothing >> >> else)). >> >> >> >> Am in the process of starting another business and doing my >> >> bookkeeping is something that I would like to delegate. There are two >> >> things that would impede this idea. >> >> >> >> 1. Business use of personal expenses. This means that for something >> >> like a vehicle expense its not just charged to a account instead it >> >> goes to 4 accounts. >> >> 1. business portion to a business account >> >> 2. personal portion to a personal account >> >> 3. taxes associated with the business portion go to a business >> >> account >> >> 4. taxes associated with the personal portion go to a personal >> >> account >> >> >> >> What makes it more challenging is that the percentages are different >> >> for different things. The same rule is used for the same item at >> >> different times but there are a number of different items and the >> >> percentages are different between the items. There may even be a >> >> change in those percentages over time if my logging shows that the >> >> business use portion changes. >> >> >> >> Presently I do this using percentages that I store mentally and then I >> >> use a calculator to calculate the amounts for each of the value >> >> (corresponding to different account connected to each item). Looking >> >> for a way to enter item into say one account and then ledger morphs >> >> things into all the connected accounts in question. (I'm told this is >> >> part of what is called cost accounting.) >> > >> > I don't have a lot to add here as I don't need ledger to do this. It >> > seems like this is something where you will need to teach the rules to >> > your bookkeeper and have them apply them. I don't think ledger could do >> > this automatically. If the rules are fairly fixed and their application >> > is fairly predictable, you might be able to set up some Automated >> > transactions to trigger them based on a tag. >> > >> > I think part of your question is "How do I get the personal part into my >> > personal bookkeeping without giving my bookkeeper all of my personal >> > files?" If this is the case, I think could store your personal files >> > somewhere only you can get to and use an include directive to include >> > the relevant business files. You'll probably get a little bit of >> > business cruft in your reports, but you may be able to exclude it by >> > using a 'not' expression. >> >> Its not the 'personal' part that I'm concerned about - -- its the math. I >> do a lot of the math in my head (use the calculator to calculate 1 >> number and then do the addition/subtraction in my head - - - have >> found that few people do things this way and there are a lot of places >> to make mistakes - - - that's the primary reason I want to automate >> this part. > > This is a horrible hack: > > 2017-01-01 foo > Expense:foo 0.25 PERC > Expense:bar 0.33 PERC > Expense:zed 0.42 PERC > Income -$20 > > ledger -f blah b -X \$ -H > > If you only use USD and don't track any other commodities, this would > allocate a single expense by percentage across categories. No math, but > ugly!
The challenge here is that I'm working in 1 currency but using 3 (as per GAAP rules). I had thought of something like your hack but when its something like gasoline (better termed fuel these days in NA) there might be 10+ foos and they all need the same formula so a formula based on the vendor will be difficult. Wonder what others out there have used for this. Business use of personal expenses is a great tool for reducing taxes payable. Make sure you're not trying to scam the system (its unlikely that your all your travel expenses are business expenses but if you can show a log where 65% of the distance traveled in a few discrete periods was for business then 65% of vehicle expenses are business expenses and that includes depreciation!). > >> >> Secondly - - - with saving things into a text file there doesn't seem >> >> to be any way of using ledger-cli say in a multi-user kind of fashion. >> >> I.e. one person perhaps entering invoices another checking for >> >> payments (or not) or perhaps even more. Not sure if this is at all >> >> practical and/or doable but thought I would toss the question out >> >> there. >> > >> > We are in the process of adopting ledger for the Fedora Project, a large >> > Open Source project. We wanted a way to have multiple treasurers, card >> > holders, and others all contributing to a single set of books. What we >> > have done is put our files in a git repository. We divided the >> > transactions into multiple files by relationship (relevant to our >> > spending habits) to minimize the likelihood of having simultaneous >> > edits. However, by using git we are able to ensure that if there is two >> > people edit and create a conflict, it gets flagged and someone has to >> > sort it out. >> > >> > I hope to publish a blog soon on how the system works (it is actually >> > pretty simple) and how our automated reporting works. >> > >> >> Interesting - -- now if I could run git completely in house (so far >> I've only used >> it as a repository for other people's software stuff) then that would be >> interested. I am not interested in my financial information being on the >> web rather I want all of that on a very controlled protected system. > > It is very possible to run it in your home. You can get fancy with > something like pagure.io, gitlab, or GOGs. However you can just run git > with ssh in your home as well. It all depends on your level of IT > skill. > I'll check into this as this would get me part of the way toward what I want. Thanks for the tips!! Dee -- --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ledger" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ledger-cli+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
