|
Posted by slb on September 21, 2007, 12:58 am
Please log in for more thread options I made that very statement (one account would work) in the 4th paragraph of my
response. I use 2 accounts
because of personal reporting preferences. There is no single correct answer for
a personal tracking
system.
I also do it this way because when I owned my company the corporate accounting
system tracked assets with
corresponding accumulated depreciation accounts and an offseting expense account
to track yearly business
depreciation tax writeoffs.
sb
sharx35 wrote:
> >I do something similar to Fred but a little more complicated. Take it for
what it's
> > worth. As Fred did, I post all the transactions to the same account and
click Yes
> > on the warning.
> >
> > I set up 2 asset accounts for each car. The first is called 99 Car Name with
an
>
> You only need to have ONE account per asset, i.e. ONE account per vehicle.
Start off with cost price, as
> you did in your first account, and simply insert depreciation, on an annual
basis in that ONE asset
> account. That way, your net worth is always accurate with only ONE account
needed per depreciable asset.
>
> > initial Increase entry for the total amount paid, say $20k. I also set up a
99 Car
> > Name Deprec account. Each Jan 1 I calculate the remaining car value and
> > depreciation from Edmunds or Kelly and enter a Decrease amount in Deprec as
the
> > prior year depreciation. On my net worth statement I have the original
amount minus
> > the accumulated depreciation leaving the "net" value of the car.
> >
> > I traded the car in this year and made a 2nd entry in the Car Name account
as a
> > decrease for the trade-in, $2k. Net cost $18k for 8 years. I also made a
> > corresponding Decrease entry in Deprec, in this scenario $1,800 to "balance"
so the
> > sum of the two accounts is now zero. In this case I traded the car for $200
more
> > than it's calculated "value."
> >
> > You could potentially put the yearly depreciation charge in the original
asset
> > account but I like to see the values separate on my net worth reports. To be
even
> > more OCD, I make a 0 amount entry in the Car Name asset account each Jan 1
called
> > mileage and put the current odometer reading as a memo item. I have a
spreadsheet
> > that goes back 12 years with cost per mile numbers for each of our many
cars. Not
> > extremely useful but fascinating trivia.
> >
> > This time though it showed me the cost per mile increasing as I started to
incur
> > some repair costs over the past 2 years. Made the decision to trade a year
earlier
> > than normal as I ignored this warning in the past and got burned on 2 cars.
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > sb
> >
> >
> > Fred Smith wrote:
> >
> >> Personally, I would use the same account. You can zero out the old balance
with
> >> a transaction which posts to the same account (you'll get a warning, but say
> >> Yes). Or do a balance adjustment. You won't see any income or expense with
this
> >> entry.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Regards,
> >> Fred
> >>
> >> > Just got a new car, with trade in of old. Dont want this to show up as
> >> > any type of income when i zero out old car. Have old car setup as a
> >> > property asset and a property liability because of the loan. If i
> >> > lower the asset account to match the amount left on the loan and do a
> >> > transfer, would that do it?? Need to also setup new loan account for
> >> > new car ==should i also setup a asset account for it??
> >> >
> >> > Anybody done this?? Whats the best way??
> >> >
> >
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap