Equipment and Real Estate Purchases

What do I do when I buy new equipment or real estate?

Starting in Goldenseal accounting software version 2.7 you can do 'one step' entry of Real Estate and Equipment purchases. Starting with Goldenseal 2.9 we've added better handling of the purchase job costing.

When you buy a new asset, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Material Purchases from the Costs menu.
  2. Click the New button.
  3. Enter the vendor account from which you bought the item.
  4. Enter a brief description and the purchase price.
  5. Enter job cost info (see below).
  6. Click on the Apply To popup field, and enter New Equipment or New Real Estate.
  7. Enter the payment method.
  8. Hit the Enter key to save the transaction. Goldenseal will prompt you, and then automatically create an Equipment or Real Estate account for the item.

To enter more details for a new equipment purchase, choose Equipment from the Accounts menu, and drag the browser control to the far right so you see the last record. To enter more details for a new real estate purchase, choose Real Estate from the Accounts menu and look at the last record.

NOTE-- You can also enter small equipment items as simple tool expenses, without use of an equipment account.

Job costing of asset purchases

For small equipment items, it usually makes the most sense to job cost the purchase to an Overhead account. That way you can group the cost with other small equipment items. To do that, enter Overhead into the Job Class popup field, and enter an overhead account into the Job field.

For larger items you may want to job cost the purchase cost to the asset account itself. In that case, just leave the Job field blank, and Goldenseal will automatically fill in the asset account after it is created. It will post job costs when you save the Purchase transaction (hit the Enter key, close the window, choose Save Record from the Edit menu, or move to a different record).

NOTE-- In Goldenseal accounting software versions 2.7 and 2.8, you'll need to temporarily enter a different job account when you first enter the purchase (since the equipment or real estate account doesn't exist yet). When you save the Material Purchase record, Goldenseal will create the account. You can then enter it into the Job field in the purchase.

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