7. Budget: Trip Planner for your Business
by Ashok Ramachandran
Gnucash 2.4 Small Business Accounting
- Gnucash 2.4 Small Business Accounting
- Copyright
- Credits
- About the Author
- About the Reviewers
- www.PacktPub.com
- Preface
- 1. Getting Started with GnuCash
- Installing GnuCash on Windows
- Time for action - installing GnuCash on Windows
- But first, a tip to make your life easier with auto-save
- Taking the drudgery out of setting up accounts
- Time for action - creating the default business accounts
- Getting your business accounts done just right
- Time for action - fine tuning business accounts
- How to impress your accountant
- Strengths and limitations of GnuCash
- Summary
- 2. Transactions the Lifeblood of a Business
- A quick and easy way to enter simple transactions
- Time for action - entering simple transactions quickly and easily
- Entering a simple transaction in the account register
- Time for action - entering a simple transaction in the account register
- Entering a more complex transaction in the account register
- Time for action - entering a split transaction in the account register
- Anybody can change their mind
- Time for action - editing, cancelling, and deleting transactions
- A feeling of déjà vu
- Time for action - reusing transactions
- Summary
- 3. Fun and Eye-opening Part - Reports and Charts
- Viewing standard reports and charts
- Time for action - viewing standard reports and charts
- Creating a custom report and saving it
- Time for action - creating a custom report and saving it
- Working with stylesheets
- Time for action - working with stylesheets
- Exporting reports
- Time for action - exporting reports
- Summary
- 4. How not to Get Lost in the Transactions Jungle
- How not to get lost while hiking in the wilderness
- Manual reconciliation
- Time for action - reconciling with a printed monthly statement
- Electronic reconciliation
- Time for action - reconciling with a downloaded electronic statement
- Credit card reconciliation
- Vital point to remember when importing an OFX file
- Recovering from wrong selection of account
- Time for action - changing the account to import into
- Summary
- 5. Repetitive Work? Let GnuCash do it
- Let GnuCash worry about recurring transactions
- Time for action - creating a recurring transaction from the register
- A stitch in time saves nine
- Time for action - triggering scheduled transactions
- Tool to create many recurring transactions
- Time for action - creating scheduled transactions in bulk
- Summary
- 6. Business Mantra: Buy Now, Pay Later
- Credit is the lubricant for the wheels of business
- Billing terms and customers
- Time for action - setting up billing terms and adding customers
- Invoices and Accounts Receivable
- Time for action - keeping track of credit sales
- Setting the starting invoice number
- Time for action - setting the starting invoice number
- Processing payment
- Time for action - when the check is on hand
- Bills and accounts payable
- Time for action - keeping track of credit purchases
- Summary
- 7. Budget: Trip Planner for your Business
- Budget
- Time for action - creating a budget for your business
- Employees and payroll
- Time for action - making payroll entries in GnuCash
- Depreciation
- Time for action - making depreciation entries for assets
- Owner's drawing
- Time for action - entering owner's draw in your books
- Summary
- 8. Making Tax Times Less Stressful
- GnuCash currently supports only US business types for income tax
- Setting up income tax related accounts
- Time for action - mapping GnuCash accounts to tax schedules
- Creating income tax schedule report and TXF export
- Time for action - getting the numbers for tax returns
- Setting up sales tax tables
- Time for action - setting up sales tax tables
- Applying sales tax to invoices
- Time for action - charging sales tax on sales
- Summary
- 9. Printing Checks and Finding Transactions
- 10. Adapting GnuCash for Non-profits and Personalizing
- No separate non-profit version of GnuCash
- Bookkeeping for non-profits
- Time for action - using GnuCash features for non-profits
- Keeping funds for projects separately
- Time for action - allocating funds for projects
- Getting overall Income Statement
- Time for action - getting overall Income Statement
- Personalizing GnuCash
- Time for action - getting your work environment just right
- Protecting your data
- Time for action - backing up your data
- Summary
- 11. Data Import/Export: Use your Phone to enter Expenses
- Saving expense data in your smartphone and uploading to your PC
- Time for action - using a smartphone to save expense data
- Sending data through an expense tracking service
- Time for action - using an expense tracking service to get data into GnuCash
- Migrating to GnuCash from other accounting software
- Time for action - migrating to GnuCash from other software
- Exporting data from GnuCash
- Time for action - exporting data from GnuCash for migration and other purposes
- Summary
- 12. Application Integration and Other Advanced Topics
- These tutorials assume a certain level of proficiency
- Using OpenOffice.org Base to query data
- Time for action - using popular office software to query GnuCash data
- Using MS Excel to create reports and charts
- Time for action - connecting from Excel to create reports and charts
- Application integration
- Time for action - exporting contact information from GnuCash
- Foreign currency transactions
- Time for action - invoicing and receiving payment in Canadian dollars
- Other handy tips and tricks
- Time for action - grouping invoices for each contract separately
- Summary
- A. Pop quiz - Answers
- Chapter 1: Getting Started with GnuCash
- Chapter 2: Transactions the Lifeblood of a Business
- Chapter 3: Fun and eye-opening part - Reports and charts
- Chapter 4: How not to get lost in the transactions jungle
- Chapter 5: Repetitive work? Let GnuCash do it
- Chapter 6: Business Mantra: Buy Now, Pay Later
- Chapter 7: Budget: Trip Planner for your Business
- Pop quiz - calculating payroll
- Chapter 8: Making Tax Times Less Stressful
- Chapter 9: Printing Checks and Finding Transactions
- Chapter 10: Adapting GnuCash for Non-profits and Personalizing
- Chapter 11: Data Import/Export: Use your Phone to Enter Expenses
- Chapter 12: Application Integration and Other Advanced Topics
"Most owners seem to feel that learning how to budget is more frustrating than just hoping the numbers will all work out, if only they sell enough widgets." extracted from a web article offering tips for small business owners.
You were telling me about this great Trip Planning website, which lets you select the following options for a road trip once you select the origin and destination anywhere in US or Canada:
- Select your route preferences
- Avoid tolls
- Favor scenic roads
- Select facilities
Once you have made the selections, they produce a personal trip itinerary for you. They mark out roads with steep grades and roads with HOV restrictions. They calculate distance in miles and budgeted time for each leg. As an added bonus, they throw in tips on how to keep your pet happy, safe, and comfortable on the trip. That was for a trip involving a week of your time, costing a couple of thousand dollars. The worst consequence of exceeding your budgeted time on the scenic road? Less time at the lake. And you swore that you were never going to turn the key in the ignition again without such a Trip Planner.
Now you are telling me that you don't have a budget for your business, with revenue in six figures that could make or break your career and change your life? Yes, you told me that every time you made an attempt to get a budget going, the steps were so confusing and in accountant's jargon that you just couldn't get yourself to begin to touch that with a ten foot pole. We are here to change that. We understand the accountants' language. We even talk to them in their language.
In this chapter we shall cover the following:
- Budget: Tutorial on creating budgets and reporting budget vs. actual.
- Employees and payroll: GnuCash doesn't have a payroll module. However, we will show how to enter payroll data for employees. We will also cover employee expense voucher processing.
- Depreciation: We will recommend ways of setting up accounts for depreciation and making entries.
- Paying yourself (also known as owner's draw): We will walk through the steps involved in cash withdrawals by the owner.
So let's get on with it...
There are two main reasons why you may want to create budgets. As you so readily agreed with us earlier, you want a trip planner for your business. You will use this on a day-to-day basis to run your business and make decisions. The second reason is if you are seeking outside finance for your business from a bank, investor, or other lender. They will require you to submit your business plan along with projected financials.
-
No Comment