[ale] OT: Bank of America

[Bob Toxen]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 01:20:39PM -0500, Jeff Hubbs wrote:
> Any good quickie tutorials on double-entry?  I'm thinking about starting
> to use SQL Ledger.
I don't know of any.  I learned from the text book for the Accounting class
that my Accounting Major GF at the time was using.

The basic idea is that any transaction involves moving money or "stuff" with
a specified value from account to another.  Thus, the amount is recorded
in two different columns, with one column for each account.  For example,
one account (column in the paper or electronic ledger) would be the balance 
in the business checking account.  Others would be "Office Supplies",
"Computer Supplies", "Salary", etc.

When you buy a $3 stack of note pads you credit Office Supplies because it
you now have $3 worth of stuff and debit the checking account, usually
represented as the "balance" on the ledger.

The beauty of double entry accounting is that you then "balance the books"
by summing up each column and the summing across the last row.  The sum of
the last row should equal zero since you started with zero.  By having the
"double entry" of each transaction (on at least two different accounts),
almost any error will show up as accounts not balancing.  Thus, it's much
harder to make an unintentional error.

At tax time, the final row is that data that you give to your accountant
or tax software.  It also has the data in a form that the IRS will accept
if they do an audit.


> - Jeff
Bob

> On Fri, 2003-11-21 at 12:49, Bob Toxen wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 21, 2003 at 02:49:36AM -0500, Christopher Gilbert wrote:
> > > On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 23:31, Bob Toxen wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Nov 19, 2003 at 10:12:24PM -0500, Christopher Gilbert wrote:
> > > > > On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 19:00, George Carless wrote:
> > > > ...
> > > > > I got GnuCash to work with BofA online too!
> > > > Do tell!  I want to switch my accounting from paper to GnuCash and have
> > > > online banking (With Royal Bank of Canada) and hope that they are
> > > > compatible.

> > > > > Chris-Marlin
> > > > Bob

> > > BofA online lets you download old statements in 
> > > Quicken formats, I have another bank that use
> > > comma separated values, It's GunCash's import filters that make it all
> > > work nicely.

> > > The trick to using GunCash is understanding "double entry accounting"
> > > they have a concepts tutorial on there web site.
> > > "Double Entry" is suppose to be a better way to handle accounting
> > > although I couldn't tell you why. 
> > > My wife keeps the book. :)  
> > The whole business world uses double entry accounting.  I understand it
> > thoroughly.

> > > As for Banks in the US, they all suck!  I regret ever canceling
> > > the HSBC account I had in Hong Kong.  I could keep up to five different
> > > currency with my one basic account and convert between them online or
> > > over the phone. They had tons of other free services that I just never
> > > got to try out.
> > You haven't tried RBC Centura.

> > HSBC suffered a large bomb explosion in front of it this week in Turkey.

> > > I any one knows of a bank in Atlanta where I can deposit Japanese yen
> > > and Chinese yuan and not have to convert it to dollars that would be
> > > cool!   

> > > Christopher-Marlin