Re: [GNC] Data conversion to QuickBooks

[James Cook]

On Sun, 24 May 2020 at 08:33, Jane Knichel-Aldea  wrote:
> Hi:
> Does anyone know if a gnucash file can be converted to QuickBooks online?
> Or if not, is there an online version of Gnucash? I am about to lose my
> laptop so I will need online access to my file.

If you have an Android phone, you may be able to get some of GnuCash's
functionality from the Android app. However, I have not tried it so I
don't know what you can and can't do with it. Also, according to
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/GnuCash_and_Mobile_Devices it has not
been updated since 2018 (and is a separate project from GnuCash
itself), so I would not rely on it as a long-term solution.

James
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Re: [GNC] Fwd: Tips for maintining different accounting for different countries?

[James Cook]

> Hello, James:

Thanks, Jim, your responses are helpful.

A couple of follow-up questions about doing cost-basis tracking outside
of GnuCash (either for Jim or for the list):

* When you do cost-basis tracking in a separate spreadsheet, do you have
  a way to reconcile that with what you have in GnuCash, to make sure
  everything's consistent? (I had been hoping to make my life simpler by
  having a single source of truth, though as you point out, my scheme
  may overcomplicate things.)

* I see your point that my scheme is too complicated. But is using
  separate cost-basis spreadsheets simpler than, e.g, using a separate
  set of GnuCash accounts, or even separate GnuCash files if I want to
  keep that stuff really really separate? I guess I'm just wondering
  whether spreadsheets are inherently simpler than GnuCash for some
  accounting tasks.

The rest of my email is just responses; no new questions below this
line.

--

I will look into finding a tax preparer. My employer paid for my 2018
taxes to be done professionally, because that was the year I moved to
Canada and was therefore especially complicated. I was hoping this year
I could just use my 2018 taxes as a template, but there are a couple of
new twists, and after reading your advice I'm reconsidering.

>  > …if I sell a stock, the realized gains for Canada are based on
> adjusted cost
>  > base, but for the US I can decide which instance of the stock I'm
> selling.…
>
> I have done almost all my cost basis tracking outside of GnuCash, in a
> spreadsheet. Consider if this might be the easier way for you also. And,
> remember that you don't have to take advantage of all the complexity
> that the regs permit you.  Why pick specific lots (pro tip, the GnuCash
> docs call them "lots", not "instances") for your sales, instead of using
> a simpler practice like "first-in-first-out" (FIFO)? You are allowed to
> choose to make your life easier.

My concern was that I'm not sure there's a simple way to satisfy both
Canada and the US. Now that you mention it, I guess there's nothing
stopping me from reporting adjusted cost base to the US. That would at
least make my two returns consistent, but I'd have to look into whether
that makes my US return more complicated due to each sell being matched
to multiple buys.

> I recommend turning on GnuCash's currency trading accounts, as described
> in /Trading Accounts/ 
> in the GnuCash wiki. If you find out things which that page does not
> explain well, please edit the page to improve it.

Yes, I found the tutorial when I was trying to figure out what that
GnuCash option did. I had not seen the GnuCash wiki page on it, though,
so thanks for that.

> So, I have six accounts for medical expenses: Medical:Spouse A:CAD,
> Medical:Spouse A:USD, Medical:Spouse B:CAD, Medical:Spouse B:USD,
> Medical:Non-deductible:CAD, and Medical:Non-deductible:USD.  It is easy
> to assign each expense to one of the accounts based on what currency it
> is in, who it is for, and whether it is deductible in both countries or
> not. For one Canadian individual return, I export totals from
> Medical:Spouse A:CAD, Medical:Spouse A:USD. For the other Canadian
> individual return, I export totals from both Medical:Spouse B:…
> accounts. For the US joint return, I export totals from both all four
> Medical:Spouse A:… and Medical:Spouse B:… accounts. If there are
> expenses which are deductible in one country but not the other, I
> haven't discovered them, or they aren't significant enough to be worth
> tracking.

Thanks, that is a helpful example. I'm still considering using my idea
for adjustment accounts rather than an account for every combination
when it comes to situations like this. I think the total number of
accounts would end up being similar with both approaches. Your idea is
probably a bit more practical, but I can't resist trying to design
something that scales linearly (rather than exponentially) with the
number of tax juridictions, even though in practice N=2 or 3 and really
I'd need only 2-3 accounts.

> Finally, don't be afraid to start simple and modify as you go. GnuCash
> lets you easily rename accounts and change the hierarchical structure of
> accounts without losing data. If you decide to merge two accounts, or
> split one account into two, then you need to go through every
> transaction in those accounts and reassign them, but that might be a
> surprisingly tractable task. It certainly doesn't require touching every
> transaction.

This last piece of advice is also really helpful. I was wondering how
important it is to get everything right when I start out, but now I feel
a bit bolder about jumping in.

- James
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[GNC] Fwd: Tips for maintining different accounting for different countries?

[James Cook]

Hi gnucash-user list,

Background:

I'm thinking of starting to use GnuCash. I need to file both Canada
and US taxes, which require different accounting. For example, if I
sell a stock, the realized gains for Canada are based on adjusted cost
base, but for the US I can decide which instance of the stock I'm
selling. I have an idea for how I will handle this, but I'm curious if
others have suggestions. (Also I'm learning about accounting for the
first time, so maybe I'm just excited and wanted to talk.)

Questions:

1. Any problems with the below idea, or ways it could be improved?
2. Are there other ways people handle this sort of thing?

Details:

I haven't used GnuCash yet, but I just read the Getting Started
section and Peter Selinger's tutorial on multiple currency accounting
at https://www.mathstat.dal.ca/~selinger/accounting/tutorial.html . I
don't really know how well the below examples would work with
GnuCash's UI.

I need to report all my income to both US and Canadian tax authorities
(and in some cases, separately, California, but that's beyond the
scope of this email), and they have incompatible rules about how my
accounting should work.

I could maintain two separate accounting files and enter all the
relevant transactions in both, but I think I can make it work with
one.

The plan: have three sets of accounts:

1. a "main" set that records things in a reasonable way (but that
might not agree with the US's or Canada's point of view)

2. a set of "Canada adjustment" accounts, and

3. a set of "US adjustment" accounts

Then every transaction will have a balanced set of splits in the
"main" account, and then possibly more independently balanced splits
in the adjustment accounts, showing how the numbers should change when
it comes time to report taxes for that country. I might create the
transactions in the "main" account at first, and then go back and fill
in the adjustments when tax time is approaching each year

I plan to use currency trading accounts as described in Peter
Selinger's tutorial, except with realized gain/loss only appearing in
the "adjustment" accounts, as in example 2 below.

Any amount reported to Canada will be the "main" amount plus the
"Canada adjustment" amount, and similarly for US.

Examples:

1. I receive a gift of 100 USD to my bank account, worth 110 CAD. This
becomes a single transaction with the following splits:

in "main" set:
* 100 USD debit to bank account
* 100 USD credit to income account
in "Canada adjustment" set:
* 100 USD debit to income account (I should report all my income in CAD)
* 110 CAD credit to income account
* 110 CAD debit and 100 USD debit to trading account
in "US adjustment" set: nothing; the "main" set matches the US point of view

My income for my Canada return is then the sum of the two income
amounts: (100 USD) + (110 CAD - 100 USD) = 110 CAD.

2. I buy stock X for 100 USD (worth 110 CAD) then sell it later for
200 USD (worth 180 CAD). Here, I'll compute the realized gains
separately for Canada and US purposes.

Transaction 1:
in "main" set:
* 100 USD credit from bank account
* 1 X debit to X asset account
* 100 USD debit and 1 X credit to "X trading" account
in "Canada adjustments" set:
* 110 CAD credit and 100 USD credit to "X trading" account (from
Canada's point of view, I spent CAD on the stock)
* 100 USD credit and 110 CAD debit to "USD trading" account. (From
Canada's point of view, I sold some USD to get the CAD I spent on the
stock. I'm ignoring realized gain on USD in this example.)
in "US adjustments" set: nothing; the "main" set is already correct

Transaction 2:
in "main" set:
* 200 USD debit to bank account
* 1 X credit from X asset account
* 200 USD credit and 1 X debit to "X trading" account
in "Canada adjustments" set:
* 110 CAD credit and 200 USD debit to "X trading" account
* 70 CAD credit to "realized gains" account
* 200 USD credit and 180 CAD debit to "USD trading" account
in "US adjustments" set:
* 100 USD debit from "X trading" account
* 100 USD credit to "realized gains" account

3. If I do several buys and sells, with different cost bases for the
sells from the Canada and US points of view, I would compute the
realized gains separately for Canada and the US as in example 2 above.

James
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