What I would probably do--there is no one right answer--is use the
classification plus some categories like Cash Advance to do the advances and
then credit the Cash Advance and debit the Expense Category to record the
expense and then credit the Cash Advance category to reflect the change.

Txn 1:

-$500.00
Cat: Cash Advance
Class: Employee:BillyBob

Txn2:

$200.00
splits:
-$300.00
Cat: Business Travel:Lodging
$500.00
Cat: Cash Advance
Class: Employee:BillyBob

This would enable some report to show the total amount of open cash advance,
maybe even by employee.

"Max" <Max.Mokeyev[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165566846.165746.172450[at]f1g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
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Comments inline below.

"Max" <Max.Mokeyev[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165508665.939973.5230[at]j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
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Yup.

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Yup.

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Not until Money gets transaction level currency exchange.

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Not beyond the problem of making it take two transactions that are really
completely separate and can't be recognized as parts of the same real-world
transaction.

Well, I do use the classification for employees.
The issue was that I was trying to figure out the best way to record
the situation where I gave Joe (Classification) $20 bucks for ice cream
(category), and two days later he brings back the $15 change.

Thanks.


Chris Cowles wrote:
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"Max" <Max.Mokeyev[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165499034.184658.123190[at]79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
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Sounds like a good use for classifications.

This is exactly where I get confused. I get a cash in for the value of
$166 it is given to me as as $150 and ?10. I go into the USD account,
and start a new transaction. In the transaction I click the split
button. On the first line of the split I choose the category
Sales:Goodies and enter the amount of 166. On the second line I enter
Transfer: Euro Account as the cateogry and enter -$16 as the amount. Is
this what you were talking about?
The biggest problem with this, is that on the USD account I see SPLIT
as the category and on the EUR account I see TRANSFER as the category,
so nowhere do I see Sales:Goodies category. I realize that when I run
the reports the antire amount will be correctly allocated, but
visually, it is very confusing. Is there a better way of doing this? Is
entering separate transactions fundamentally wrong?

Thanks


Dick Watson wrote:
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I'm not fully sure I understand your case. But you can have a transaction in
a total amount of X in one Account and split it into two components, one of
which is a Transfer To/From a different Account of amount Y. If the two
Accounts are different currency, the Transfer will have a currency exchange
built into it from, say Y in one currency to Z in the second currency.

(for the following: ? is the Euro symbol--I'm pretty sure NNTP will mangle
this as NNTP is 7-bit not 8.)

But Transfers are without Category and I think this is the issue you are
raising. If you receive $123.00 and ?456.00 for Sales:Goodies, there is no
way to record both of these incomes in one transaction in their native
currencies. You can record, say, ?598.50 in Sales:Goodies in the EuroCash
account with a TransferollarCash of the $123.00 Split into the
transaction. This would result in ?456.00 net deposit into EuroCash and a
transfer out of EuroCash that is (?142.50) on the Euro side and $123.00 on
the Dollar side assuming an exchange rate of ?1.158 to $1.00.

Money should allow transaction level currency exchange. It doesn't.

"Max" <Max.Mokeyev[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165499034.184658.123190[at]79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
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Dick Watson wrote:
- quote -

I see your point with the separate accounts, but in my case where money
goes from the petty cash account to 60 different employees, having a
separate account for each employee would be too difficult and make the
data entry a night mare. So I will stick to this method for now, and
see if there are any problems.


On a similar note what is the best way of dealing with incuring an
expense (or getting income) from one logical transaction into to
different accounts. For me this happens when I pay or recieve money in
different curencies for the same transaction. I have a separate account
for each currency. So if I pay $200 and q00 euros for the same
transaction (so a total of whatever the $200+q00eu equals), now I just
create to separate transactions in two separate accounts with identical
information. But I vaguely remember reading somewhere that a better way
is to use a SPLIT and TRANSFER in this case. I haven't been very
sucsesful at getting it to work just right.
Any suggestions on this case?

Thank you.

My theoretical answer--especially in the case of a small business--is that
it would be better to track the cash transfer as a transfer from one cash
account to another and only record the expense when you have some proof it
was incurred.

But practically your solution works as well and will work in the reports and
so forth. I'm vaguely recalling some issues I've seen over the years with
some report customizations gagging on the wrong sign for income/expense, but
am hard pressed to think of any specific examples. It may just be my addled
brain remembering wrong.

"Max" <Max.Mokeyev[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165478070.210584.147180[at]j72g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

I have a theoretical question. In my case this relates to a small
business, but since very few people use money for business I will ask
the question in the context of a familiy. Lets say you have a central
budget, and give some money to a family mamber for ice cream. You only
have a $20, so you record the $20 expense into the IceCream category.
After the ice cream is purchased, you recieve $15 back. So you can
either 1) Find the original transaction, and change the amount from
$20 to $5 or 2) Record a positive amount of $15 to the Iceream cateogry
(so the total expense is $5).

Now, I have been using method #2, since it seems more natural. Are
there any problems in reporting or other areas I am likely to
encounter?

Thanks.