Accounting Structure and Bookkeeping Correctly [serious]

[Kev Lau]

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

#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

[Stefan Tunsch]

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:
• 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.
• 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:
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
• 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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[Simon Michael]

On 5/7/15 3:52 AM, Stefan Tunsch wrote:
> Start playing with ledger, and soon enough you will get the hang of it
> and will understand what suits you best.

You can also build your skills without commitment or giving up your old
system, by tracking just one account for a period of time. Eg the cash
in your wallet. Practice data entry, learn how to record each of your
common transactions, and get your reports to match reality consistently.
The next level could be one checking account. As you get comfortable you
can include more of your financial life.

[Kev Lau]

Hi Stefan,
Thanks for your input.
Yes I am trying to limit to 5 accounts. Expenses,Revenue,Assets,Liability and Equity.
About positive and negative, I am still little confused so will go back to reading more on Debit and Credit systems. i think I need help there.
Yes. I should have first a Liabilities:Unearned_Revenue: before going to the Expenses:CostofGoodsSold.

I think I will familiarize myself with positive and negative accounts.

Thanks very much for the constructive feedback. It helped open my eyes.

Will rectify the mistakes and re-post. Your feedback is very valuable to me.


Regards
Kevin

[Kev Lau]

Hi Simon,
I need to start tracking my company and personal accounts. Both together as there is no one else to do it. I am quite stressed and thats why I am here.
So I hope i can start getting better at making ledger entries. Will read more today on book-keeping.

[Douglas Philips]

On 5/7/15 12:15 PM, Kev Lau wrote:
> Hi Stefan,
> Thanks for your input.
> Yes I am trying to limit to 5 accounts. Expenses,Revenue,Assets,Liability and Equity.
> About positive and negative, I am still little confused so will go back to reading more on Debit and Credit systems. i think I need help there.
> Yes. I should have first a Liabilities:Unearned_Revenue: before going to the Expenses:CostofGoodsSold.
>
> I think I will familiarize myself with positive and negative accounts.

It might be simpler than you think.
My big "AHA" was when I really got that it was really reall simple.

Money/goods/(whatever you are tracking) goes from one place to another.
In order to "leave" an account, you have a negative amount.
In order to "arrive" in an account, you have a positive amount.
In each entry, all the leaves and arrives have to sum up to 0.

Money doesn't "come out of thin air" or "appear from nowhere".

My income accounts are all negative because I don't track where my employer, etc. gets their money from.
It seems weird at first, but it's simple.

Hope this helps (at least a little).
-=Doug

[Stefan Tunsch]

As Doug says, it's simpler than it sounds.

Unearned Revenue, or Accounts_Receivable is an asset not a liability, so you should reflect it as that.
Costs of Goods Sold normally refers to the value of your stock or produced goods, so that would be also an asset in my opinion.
But I am not sure you want to complicate things like that.

Regarding your question about an example, you have quite a few in the ledger documentation.

In order to provide you with a better answer, I would need more detailed info about what you want to do and how you want to report things into your accounting system.

Regards, Stefan

El 07/05/15 a las 18:36, Douglas Philips escribió:

[Kev Lau]

Hi Doug,
Still find it hard and stressful. I feel very intimidated.
I know that I am missing a Liabilities:Un_Serviced_Revenue:Purchase_Order   to Expenses:

Guess I need to read more on book-keeping. I have always tried to avoid this role.
Will try to read more.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Kev Lau]

Okay.
Just a general question:-

Assets        Debit ()
Liabilities     Credit ()
Equity        Credit ()
Revenue        Credit ()
Expenses        Debit ()

The accounts above for a general business(that is functioning normally) should be what signs. Positive or Negetive. I seem to be confused.
When we pay cash, we credit our Assets account: Cash. When we get cash we debit our Assets account:Cash .

On the long run, if there is alot of cash would the Assets:Cash be a negative value?
Pls advise.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Kev Lau]

Hi
This is what I think is correct. Read the ledger manual and some pretty good explaining there.

Assets will be in negative . Will keep reading to figure things out.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Erik Hetzner]

Hi Kevn,

On Thu, 07 May 2015 12:52:15 -0700,
Kev Lau <superint...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
> This is what I think is correct. Read the ledger manual and some pretty
> good explaining there.
>
> Assets will be in negative . Will keep reading to figure things out.

No, this is not correct.

Accounts seem to dislike negative numbers, so they deal with
debits/credits to work around them. We are OK with them so we don’t.

Typically in ledger-land your chart of accounts will be:

Assets: positive
Liabilities: negative
Income: negative
Expenses: positive
Equity: negative

Note how this corresponds with:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debits_and_credits#The_five_accounting_elements

Here is how money is *typically* moved (for a personal user, not a
business):

-Equity +Assets (starting balance)
+Expenses -Assets (spending your money)
+Expenses -Liabilities (spending on credit)
-Assets +Liabilities (paying your bills)
-Income +Assets (getting paid)

Hope that helps.

best, Erik
--
Sent from my free software system <http://fsf.org/>.

[Rick F]

Unearned revenue is definitely not a liability.

If you're struggling with accounting, you shouldn't be messing with accrual based accounts like unearned income or accounts payable anyway.  Just stick with cash based accounts, accounts that only change when cash actually changes hands.

Just keep it simple.  Start with the big five and add sub-accounts only when you have to.

2015/1/1  Sale

  Assets $100.00

  Income

2015/1/1  Account transfer

  Assets $10.00

  Assets

2015/1/2  Bill

  Expenses $50.00

  Assets

So now you know when cash moved around, but it's not very useful.  Take a look at that account transfer transaction.  It doesn't tell you anything.  You probably would like to know how much is in your checking account.  This doesn't really tell you.  So add a checking subaccount.

2015/1/1  Sale

  Assets:Checking $100.00

  Income

2015/1/1  Account transfer

  Assets:Savings $10.00

  Assets:Checking

2015/1/2  Bill

  Expenses $50.00

  Assets:Checking

 What if you want to know how much you spent on your electric bill last year?  Again, you can't find that out from this account structure so add a subaccount.

2015/1/2  Bill

  Expenses:Electricity $50.00

  Assets:Checking

What if you also want to know how much you spent on all utilities in addition to asking about electricity.  That's right, just add another subaccount.  Since Electricity is also a utility, put it into the Utilities account:

2015/1/2  Bill

  Expenses:Utilities:Electricity $50.00

  Assets:Checking

What if you want to know how much it cost you to maintain your office, not just your utilities.  Add yet another subaccount.

 2015/1/2  Bill

  Expenses:Office:Utilities:Electricity $50.00

  Assets:Checking

What if you don't want to know that?  Then don't add the extra level.

What if you want to know how much of your money is in which bank?  Add a subaccount:

2015/1/1  Account transfer

  Assets:First National Credit Union:Savings $10.00

  Assets:Citibank:Checking

What if you want to know how much of your money is in credit unions vs. banks vs. brokerage accounts?  That's right, add a subaccount.

2015/1/1  Account transfer

  Assets:Credit Unions:First National Credit Union:Savings $10.00

  Assets:Banks:Citibank:Checking

What if you never need to ask that question?  Save yourself the trouble (and typing) and just don't add those subaccounts.  There's a strong temptation when you're starting accounting to try and account for everything.  What if you want to keep track of local vs. remote banks?  Add a subaccount, otherwise don't.  Save yourself from having to type something stupid like

"Assets:Liquid:Banks:Multinational:Remote:USA:Northeast:New York:New York:Manhattan:Citibank:Checking"

every time you write a check.

What if you want to keep track of what income came from sales vs. from your salary?  Add another subaccount!

2015/1/1  Sale

  Assets:Checking $100.00

  Income:Sales

 Now let's talk about negative and positive.  Note I cleverly wrote all those transactions without a single minus sign.  All I had to do was record where the money ended up as the first thing and left the other amount to be implied.  I could have written it in:

2015/1/1  Sale

  Assets:Checking $100.00

  Income:Sales -$100.00

But Ledger doesn't make me do it, so I don't.

Wait a minute.  Why are sales negative?  That's confusing, but so be it.  That's not a bad reason to leave the negative side of your transactions to Ledger's inference. I started with where the money ended up, that's positive, so wherever it came from is negative.  Does that mean expenses are positive?  You betcha.  That's where my money ended up.  If that's where the money in the transaction ended up, that means its positive.  I certainly have no trouble understanding the money LEFT my checking account, so it makes sense that side of the transaction is negative.

I'm not saying don't use minus signs.  Sometimes it would be more complex to try and split a transaction into enough pieces to get rid of all the minus signs.  I only did it in this case to drive home the point: Wherever the cash ended up, that part of the transaction is positive.  If the cash didn't end up there, it's negative.

That's enough for now.  Don't read past this point or you'll just get confused.

It shouldn't be said, but if I don't say something it'll bug me the rest of the day.  Technically, cost of goods sold is an income category, not an expense, because it goes into calculating your income, not your expenses.  If you buy a widget for $3 and sell it for $5, that's $2 of income.

Now just because it's a subaccount of income doesn't mean it's money coming in.  Buying the widget for $3 is definitely money going out, but money doesn't normally go out when you're talking about income, so that means cost of goods sold is a negative income account and since income is already negative in ledger, that makes it a double negative account which is positive, which....uh......  You know what?  Just forget I brought it up.  If you record it as an expense your bottom line (profit) will still work out just fine.

[kinleyd]

Hey guys,

Nice chatter here. I'm familiar with accounting but still not comfortable with the negative numbers in ledger (for certain categories of accounts). This thread is very helpful - I'm going to star it for reference when I get back to do some heavy lifting for my accounting work.

Thanks,

Kinley

[Kev Lau]

hi kinleyd,
glad this is all helping you too. Once I make sense of all this I will write a page for newbies(like us) who want/need to use ledger. It will be a crash course of basic accounting and how it applies to ledger. I till havent wrapped my head around all the concepts well but this is 1 thing I might have under stood


Line 1 : Where money ended up (recorded in a positive)  = Credit
Line 2 : Where money came from (recorded in a negetive) = Debit

Assets:Cash:Citibank                                     $12,998.06
Liabilities:Account_Payable:Venture_Ent      $-12,998.06 ; OR can be left blank as ledger will balance itself.

Please tell me if I am headed in right direction.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Stefan Tunsch]

Almost, but not.
Where the money ends is positive, yes.
But not Credit. Credit is negative.
Your example is strange.
Money goes from something you owe (Liabilities) to something you have (Assets). (Like saying: I thought I owed something to somebody, but that's not correct. I do not owe this anymore.)
This would only make sense if it was some kind of correction, I suppose.
Normally it would be the other way around.
Money goes from Assets to Liabilities to pay your loans, bills, visa card, and anything else you might owe.

Accountants say some account is debit or credit just to remember what it's main purpose is. But other from that, all accounts are the same.
Even though money can flow in any direction, normally it flows for example from Liabilities or Assets to Expenses (Expenses is an amount that will always get bigger (more positive).)
And from Income to Assets. (Assets is positive (debit), Income is negative (credit).

Finally money also typically flows from Assets to Liabilities, to pay what you owe.

This is just the general or typical way money flows.

Regards, Stefan

El 08/05/15 a las 09:42, Kev Lau escribió:

[Kev Lau]

Hi Steffan,
Yes. You are right. It does seem strange. I have put 1 example below. Please see and advise how would you write this in your ledger.

Hi Rick,
See below.
Thats a chart I am trying to follow

Balance Sheet
        Assets    : Cash, Account Recievables, Supplies, Equipments, Cost_of_Goods
        Liability    : Notes Payable, Account Payable, Wage Payable, UnEarnedRevenue
        Equity    : Common Stock, Retained Earnings,
    Income Statement
        Revenue    : Service Revenue , Investment Revenue
        Expenses : Wage Expenses, Rent, Depreciation Expenses etc.

Example of UnearnedRevenue:
So for example the cash advance of 6 months (without making any delivery) he will have a cash reciept of 600 but no revenue.
He only earns his revenue (by making delivery)
It will be:
Assets:Cash $600 but also in his Liability there will be $600 which will be Liability:UnEarnedRevenue $600
Each month he delivers there will be a addition into the Serviced Revenue account.
Which will show the income statement to increase by $100 .

Wouldnt this entry above look like this in ledger:-

Assets:Cash $600
Liability:UnearnedRevenue $600

Or how would you write this into your ledger. I am most likely doing to wrong.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[John West]

There may be a significant gap in how I, as a total amateur, would do this versus someone familiar with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principals.

In ledger, I might represent the system like this at the start:

Assets:Cash $600

Liability:Unearned Revenue $-600

Then, every month:

Liability:Unearned Revenue $100

Revenue:Serviced Revenue $-100

After six months, you'd have $600 in Assets:Cash, $0 in Liability:Unearned Revenue, and $-600 in Revenue:Serviced Revenue.

That will maybe look a little strange, but in ledger I expect all of my Income or Revenue accounts to be negative numbers.

I hope this helps!  It took me a long time to come to grips with this, since I too am self-taught.  I have the luxury of not doing this for business, though, and only doing it to track my personal finances.

[Kev Lau]

Dear John,
Thanks for your feedback. I meant to add a negative value on the bottom value.
I want to get more feedbacks from people on this group.
Thanks for your input.

Which is correct:-

A.

Liability:Unearned Revenue $100  

Revenue:Serviced Revenue $-100

B.
Revenue:Serviced Revenue $100    ;this is where the money goes to
Liability:Unearned Revenue $-100   ; this is where the money is from

Please advise if I am thinking correctly.

[John West]

Assuming you start it out as:

Assets:Cash $600

Liability:Unearned Revenue $-600

Then if you use B over six months you end up with:

* $600 in Assets:Cash, which is correct

* $600 in Revenue:Serviced Revenue which looks correct intuitively but is not correct, since it should be a negative number

* $-1200 in Liability:Unearned Revenue, which is incorrect.

The only time money really moved is when you do the initial setup and put the $600 in Assets:Cash.

Every six months afterwards, the goal is to get rid of the $-600 in Liability:Unearned Revenue.  You can think of Liability:Unearned Revenue as a credit card account and you'd be pretty close to the truth of the matter.  The monthly $100 is like a credit card payment.  So it comes from Revenue:Serviced Revenue and goes toward paying off the credit card, or in this case, Liability:Unearned Revenue.  That's why A works out to $0 in Liability:Unearned Revenue at the end of the six months.  If you follow B, that's like putting another $100 charge on the card monthly.

[Kev Lau]

Dear John,
Interesting point.
I see where you are coming from and do understand it.
We should make a rule-book(for such cases) for Ledger for basic transaction. Because the negative figures can be very intimidating and structuring can go very wrong.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Rick F]

OK.  I understand now.  It's a prepayment of some kind, so money actually has changed hands.

It's all going to depend on how you conduct your business.  The simplest thing to do is just recognize it as revenue as a sale (Revenue:Sales).  If you rarely or never have to pay customers back that's fine.

For example, let's say you accept a $600 down payment on a $1200 job.  Once the job is complete, the customer pays the final $600.  Here's how you'd record it.

2015/1/1  Down Payment

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Revenue:Sales

2015/1/1  Contract Complete

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Revenue:Sales

If you want to keep track of prepayments separate from completed contracts, create a subaccount (Revenue:Prepayments), but then you'd have to have a (more) complicated transaction at contract completion to close out the prepayment.

2015/1/1  Down Payment

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Revenue:Prepayments

2015/2/1  Contract Complete

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Revenue:Prepayments  $600

  Revenue:Sales

Wait a minute.  Why is the Prepayments amount positive?  I'm taking something out of that account.  Shouldn't it be negative?  Not if you're reading that correctly.  What it's saying is that the customer paid off the entire contract at completion (Revenue:Sales).  $600 of that $1200 was in the form of a payment into your checking account (Assets:Checking).  The other $600 was a prepayment (Revenue:Prepayments).  It would look the same if instead of a prepayment the customer paid the whole contract off at the end and you put $600 into a savings account instead.

Now, if you have to pay the customer back for failure to complete the contract, then you didn't really recognize revenue any more than getting a loan from the bank that you have to repay counts as revenue.  At contract completion, the liability goes away, so at that point you'd recognize it as revenue.  In that case, just replace "Revenue:Prepayments" in the previous example with "Liabilities:Prepayments"

2015/1/1  Down Payment

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Liability:Prepayments

2015/2/1  Contract Complete

  Assets:Checking  $600

  Liability:Prepayments  $600

  Revenue:Sales

[Kev Lau]

Dear Rick,
Good point.
I am thinking of making a webpage dedicated to basic ledger entries(basically a crash course in book-keeping and basic accounting) for all newbies who want to use ledger-cli. I think it would be a resource that would be greatly appreciated.
It will cover(with great depth and simplicity):-

1. How to get started with Ledger-cli with Emacs (as thats most popular)
2. A brief structure of accounting chart
3. Make first entries successfully (for small businesses) using examples
4. Basic Report printing  (Income Statement and Balance Sheet) Maybe cash flow too.

Would you be interested in helping ?  This is open to anyone else on this forum too.

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Simon Michael]

I really like this intro. I'd love to see this and more like it nice
presented and prominent among the first docs that new *ledger users see.

[Martin Blais]

Did you guys see the cookbook?

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/cookbook

Or the Getting Started guide?

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/getting-started

It's framed in the context of Beancount but the concepts pretty much apply to Ledger as well.

[Kev Lau]

Dear Martin,
Yes. I was thinking of something like what you did but for small businesses.
Some sample transaction for small businesses.

Can we all confirm on the following points:-

ACCOUNT STRUCTURE

Balance Sheet
---Assets    : Cash, Account Receivables, Supplies, Equipments
---Liability    : Notes Payable, Account Payable, Wage Payable, Unearned_Revenue
---Equity    : Common Stock, Retained Earnings,
Income Statement
---Revenue    : Service Revenue , Investment Revenue
---Expenses : Wage Expenses, Rent, Depreciation Expenses etc.


TRANSACTION SAMPLES


TRANSACTION 1
Dec 1 2014  - Joe starts his business by making a personal investment of $20,000 in in his firm in exchange for 5,0000.00 common stock.
Cash account is increased from 0 to $20,000.00
Also there is an increase stock holders equity account of Common Stock  to $20,000.00.

Assets:Cash           $20,000.00               
Equity:Common Stock   


TRANSACTION 2
Joe purchases a a vehicle using cash by writing a cheque of $14,000.00
2 accounts involved here are Cash and Vehicle

Assets:Cash    
Assets:Vehicle     $14,000.00


TRANSACTION 3
Joe contacts an insurance agent regarding insurance coverage.
The agent informs $1,200.00 will provide insurance for 6 months(each month $200).

Assets:Cash
Assets:Prepaid_Insurance        $1,200.00

Each month it will go as follows:-
Assets:Prepaid_Insurance
Expenses:Insurance                $200.00



TRANSACTION 4
Customer pays Joe $10 for 2 deliveries for that day against invoice#001.

Assets:Cash                            $10.00        
Revenue:Service_Revenue:Sales:Invoice#001
 


TRANSACTION 5
Lets say Joe gets a big order and needs to deliver 50 parcels immediately for $250. He hires a helper to deliver the parcel. The customer tells Joe to submit an invoice of $250.00 and he will pay it in 7 days.
Since Joe delivers 50 parcels, he has earned $250.00

Assets:Account_Receivables:Invoice#002   $250.00
Revenue:Service_Revenue:Inv#??

Do we mention on the Service_Revenue the order Number? or on the Unserviced_Revenue?


TRANSACTION 6
For sake of simplicity Lets say the only expense was the Temporary Helper.
The temporary helper fee is $80 and is due by Dec 2nd.

Expenses:Temporary_Helper        $80.00         
Liability:Account_Payable:Helper

On Thursday, May 7, 2015 at 4:52:16 PM UTC+7, Kev Lau wrote:

[Simon Michael]

On 5/9/15 2:40 PM, Martin Blais wrote:
> Did you guys see the cookbook?
> http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/cookbook
>
> Or the Getting Started guide?
> http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/getting-started

Indeed, those are great. But hard to discover. I had forgotten/not seen
the cookbook.

I'm linking at hledger.org/more-docs now, and maybe someone will link
them to the Ledger site or wiki.

It's good that they have stable human-friendly urls as well as the
cryptic google ones. I think it would encourage linkers if those were
more prominent; currently I'm not sure how to find them out.

[Martin Blais]

All the Beancount documentation can be found its top index page, here:

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/index

It's a flat index of all the docs I've published on the topic. I do want to figure out a better solution for short links to Google documents - probably with a custom URL shortener on a domain - but at the moment I'm using simple redirects from furius.ca. If you really want to know how it's implemented, the redirects are defined here:

https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/src/tip/.htaccess?at=default

Note that this list includes links to not-yet-published docs.

What I really want is a custom URL shortener like what Google Apps Labs Short Links was, but one that doesn't rewrite the URL, maybe serves it in an IFRAME or something.

Oh you know what? I'll add the short links to the docs themselves under the titles. Problem solved.

[Kinley Dorji]

Awesome documentation, Martin. Much appreciated by a fellow dilettante.

Kinley

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[Martin Blais]

So just for fun, to address your comment I've implemented a little <iframe> wrapper around my docs, it looks like this, e.g. some links:

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/test/index

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/test/motivation

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/test/syntax

http://furius.ca/beancount/doc/test/install

...

It address a problem I've been wanting to deal with for a while: I want the documents to open in viewing mode by default, yet allow the possibility for the user to enter edit mode to add comments. I open the wrapped doc in "Preview" mode, which is faster and read-only, but I've put a little header which you can click on to open the doc in "Edit" mode where you can add comments.

It also keeps the URL in the URL bar, like you ask.

Do you like this better?

(I'm considering changing all the links to use that, not sure yet.)