Time tracking in GnuCash

[Luigi Bai]

Hi,

I just started using GnuCash for the first time this weekend. I'm
hooked; it's a great replacement for my old ledger program.

As a consultant, one thing I miss from my old program is tracking time.
I'm hacking it right now by having an asset account called "Hours Bank"
which has an entry for each time interval; the value is interval * rate,
and the memo documents the interval. Each entry is a transfer from the
correct income account. (This is of course hand calculated for now). My
invoice posts items against the Hours Bank, which moves the asset to
A/R. This works nicely in terms of tying up correctly; however, I'm not
entirely sure that the Hours Bank is a real asset (although I guess they
are - they're not invoiced yet but can be, according to the contract).
The "Hours Bank" account doesn't work if it's an A/R account.

What I'd like to do is set up two GUI dialogs to make this easier. One
would probably be under Business->Time Tracking, and would ask which
Customer/Job to post against, the rate, and the interval (start end). In
a perfect world, I would be able to retrieve the account information
from the Customer/Job - which asset account and which income account get
involved. In a pinch, I guess I could instead just have the dialog do
that for now.

The second dialog would be involved during the creation of the invoice.
It'd ask for which Hours Bank asset account to debit, and show a list of
transactions; clicking on more than one would cause them to be summed
for the invoice line item.

Is this approach to tracking time sane? And is anyone working on
something like this already?

Thanks;
Luigi