Initial documentation for Expense: documentation requirements.

This includes some additions to the example ledger files.
This commit is contained in:
Bradley M. Kuhn 2013-04-29 15:41:44 -04:00
parent ddf29b6c10
commit 8f1f957cab
3 changed files with 75 additions and 0 deletions

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@ -56,6 +56,10 @@ account Expense:Main Org:Phones
assert expenseChecker() or payee =~ /NEVER CHARGED/
note Main Organization's Phone Expenses
account Expense:Main Org:Hosting
assert expenseChecker() or payee =~ /NEVER CHARGED/
note Main Organization's Network Hosting Provider services
account Expense:Main Org:Occupancy
assert expenseChecker() or payee =~ /NEVER CHARGED/
note Main Organization's Occupancy for Office Space and the like

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@ -3,3 +3,16 @@
!include ../config/config-npo.ledger
2012-02-05 Office Supply Galore - Online Order
Expense:Main Org:Office Supplies $35.00
;Receipt: accounts/documentation/org/receipts/2012-02-05_office-supply-galore.txt
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa -$35.00
2011/05/28 My Bad Billing Hosting - NEVER CHARGED
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa $-100.00
Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting $100.00
2012/01/01 My Bad Billing Hosting - REVERSAL - NEVER CHARGED
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa $100.00
Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting $-100.00

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@ -140,6 +140,64 @@ structures. This allows member/affiliated projects to take their data and
run `ledger` commands against it, separately and without access to the other
`.ledger` files of the NPO.
Proper Documentation For Accounts
---------------------------------
Ledger CLI offers a flexible structure of tagging any entry, including
separate tags for parts of a split transaction. This system uses those tags
to ensure proper entry is included.
### Expense Account Documentation
Each Expense account entries need to be tagged with an `Invoice`, `Receipt`,
or `Statement` tag. The value of the tag is a relative path name of a file
elsewhere in the same repository that documents the specific expense. For
example, an entry like this:
2012-02-05 Office Supply Galore - Online Order
Expense:Main Org:Office Supplies $35.00
;Receipt: accounts/documentation/org/receipts/2012-02-05_office-supply-galore.txt
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa -$35.00
shows that a purchase was made at Office Supply Galore's online store for
$35.00, and the file `accounts/documentation/org/receipts/2012-02-05_office-supply-galore.txt`
contains the receipt from that purchase.
#### payee with "NEVER CHARGED"
The only exception to the standard tagging requirement is when the payee has
been modified to indicate that the expense was `NEVER CHARGED`. This is an
historical special-case. The solution was originally design for the
following scenario:
Suppose an expense was expected — for example, a situation where you
gave a credit card number to charge something and the charge never came
through — but it turns out the charge never happened.
The recommended way to resolve this problem in the system is to just delete
the entry entirely from the Ledger file, and allow the VCS to log the fact
that the charge was expected, but the vendor never billed the credit card.
The reason the `NEVER CHARGED` payee text was added was to handle the
situation where the books included this charge, but the books were already
closed for the financial period (e.g., the books had already been audited).
Changing the payee was a method for documenting the expense. You might use
it like this:
2011/05/28 My Bad Billing Hosting - NEVER CHARGED
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa $-100.00
Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting $100.00
2012/01/01 My Bad Billing Hosting - REVERSAL - NEVER CHARGED
Liabilities:Credit Card:Visa $100.00
Expenses:Conservancy:Hosting $-100.00
However, going forward, you'd likely never enter anything the ledger
**until** you had real proof via an Invoice, Receipt or Statement that showed
the Expense did/should occur. This use of `NEVER CHARGED` in the payee is
thus deprecated.
Copyright and License of This File
----------------------------------