Getting started with beancount for my business

[RJ]

Hi,

I'm starting to use beancount for my small business and I have some questions. Reading the beancount docs only got me so far, so I would like to hear whether I'm heading in the right direction.

Suppose I send an invoice to a client for a service I delivered to Customer X, I guess I would post it like this:

2023-03-2 * Invoice 2023_1 Things I did for you ^invoice_2023_1
        Liabilities:Customers:X 1000.00 EUR
        Income:Invoices            -800.00 EUR
        Liabilities:Tax:VAT         -200

20% VAT is included in the invoice.

I'm struggling a bit here with the Assets vs. Liabilities and the signs here, should the customer account be an asset or a liability?

And then, when I receive the money from the customer I guess I would do:

2023-04-02 * Payment for invoice 2023_1 ^invoice_2023_1    
    Liabilities:Customers:X     -1000.00 EUR
    Assets:Current                       800

    Assets:Current:VATReserve 200

I like to reserve the money for the taxes in a subaccount, does that make sense? Is there a better way to do that with beancount?

TIA

[Patrick Ruckstuhl]

Hi,

the accounts area always from your point of view. So what you are owed are assets, what you are owing are liabilities.

I think I would model it like this

The sell is the one that actually "splits" the bill into your income and into what is simply tax liability

2023-03-2 * Invoice 2023_1 Things I did for you ^invoice_2023_1

        Assets:Receivables:Customers:X 1000 EUR
        Income:Invoices            -800 EUR
        Liabilities:Tax:VAT         -200 EUR

The actual receiving of cash is then only clearing out what the customer owes you vs what you have in your bank/cash account.

2023-04-02 * Payment for invoice 2023_1 ^invoice_2023_1    

    Assets:Receivables:Customers:X     -1000 EUR
    Assets:Current                                     1000 EUR

And then later when you actually pay/transfer the tax to the state, you will have something like

2023-04-30 * "Paying VAT"
    Assets:Current                                     -200 EUR

    Liabilities:Tax:VAT                                 200 EUR

Regards,

Patrick

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Beancount" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to beancount+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/beancount/9d6bc6f9-5937-45c9-a88f-6bbf262466can%40googlegroups.com.