[moneydance] moneydance-info Digest, Vol 64, Issue 17

[Cortjan Koppen]

>
>
> On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:44:22 +0100
> Cortjan Koppen <registratie at koppit.nl> wrote:
>
>> The solution of my 'problem' may stare me in the face, but if it
>> does I need some help to get it to my brain.
>>
>> I have one installation of Moneydance on my Mac. There currently are
>> two files which I defined, one handling my personal finances and one
>> handling family finances. Each file contains several accounts, in
>> most cases I started one account per bank (there are e.g. several
>> saving accounts per file).
>> I deactivated VAT support in the General Preferences.
>>
>> Now I want to start using MD for my company too. A new file can
>> contain all necessary business accounts. Therefore I need VAT
>> support. If VAT support is activated, ALL files in MD will show the
>> VAT-stuff, i.e. my company accounts AND my two private financial
>> environments (files).
>>
>> Question: is there a possibility to use VAT only in one environment
>> (in one file, containing several accounts)?
>>
>> Thanks for any ideas.
>>
>> Cortjan.
>
> I would recommend that you keep your personal and business stuff in
> separate accounts- unless you use business bank account for personal
> use or vice versa.
>
> In that case you can use VAT in one file and not the other.
>
> The other thing is that you can specify exactly which accounts (i.e.
> categories) use VAT/GST and specify a different percentage rate for
> each. So you could conceivably set up accounts such as "Car use"
> with sub-accounts "personal" and "Business" with differing GST rates
> (i.e. 0 in personal and whatever the actual rate is in business).
>
> Hope that helps
>
> --  
> God bless you,
>
>
> Keith Bates
>

Reacting to Keith's two solutions:

1. Yes, I keep personal and business finance completely separated, but  
no, in that case I cannot manage to use VAT in one file and not the  
other because there is only one place to tick or untick Preferences in  
Moneydance and these Preferences consequently influence all files.  
Therefore, if I choose to use VAT by ticking it in Preferences, all  
files (personal and business) will be forced to use VAT.

2. Your idea of specifying different VAT percentages per category is a  
solution indeed, but I hope you see this also as a workaround for the  
problem. Although it will work neatly, the screens in my personal  
finance environment will be cluttered with useless VAT fields. Of  
course I can live with that, but why is it difficult to invoke VAT- 
support per file in stead of all files?

Thanks,

Cortjan.
(using OS X)