Budgeting

[Matthew Vanecek]

I want a big ol' bat that'll bash me over the head when I exceed the
budget!! (trying to buy a house. :/).  Seriously, I'm thinking Budget as
a super category, with subcategories.  Each subcategory would have a
specific amount tied to it.  Transactions from other accounts would be
applied to configured categories under Budget. i.e., I've got, say, an
Expenses:Utilities:Electricity type, which is tied to a Budget
subcategory "Monopolies".  Every time I enter a transaction from any
account which credits/debits Expenses:Utilities:Electricity, a
corresponding transaction is logically entered in the Monopolies
category.  I'm not sure if maintaining this could be done on the fly, or
if a separate Budget register file would be needed.  Anyhow, the
balances in the various Budget subcategories reflect how much under/over
the budget for that category I am.

Well, anyhow, that's my thoughts on the matter.  I couldn't really
devote time to it,though, as I'm working on another GNUCash-related
project (which I'll post in a little bit), which to me is as useful as
the Budget thing.


James LewisMoss wrote:
> 
> OK.  Here's what I have so far in my want list for a budgeting
> system.  I'm still looking for more ideas on what it should do.
> 
> I want my budgeting system ...
> 
> ... to help me make a budget.
> ... to be able to group expense accounts into budget items.
> ... to tell me when I mess up (real time and through reports).
> ... to have a nice report or ten.
> ... to add transactions automatically
> ... to mark transactions as automatically added so I can make sure
> they are ok.
> ... to remind me to add items.
> ... to contain useful info.  (About how to budget and what budgeting
> means.)
> ... to contain useful lists of budgets (examples).
> ... to handle different types of budget items (examples: constant over
> period; one shot; scheduled regularly; scheduled irregularly; etc)
> ... to gracefully handle when I break my budget (help me fix it; mark
> as anomoly; etc)
> ... to handle expense accounts in more than one budget group
> ... to have a report that shows all the particular transactions/splits
> that went into each budget item each month.
> 
> So what do other people want?
> 
> Jim
> 
> --
> @James LewisMoss <dres@debian.org>      |  Blessed Be!
> @    http://jimdres.home.mindspring.com |  Linux is kewl!
> @"Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours." Bach
> 
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-- 
Matthew Vanecek
perl -e 'print
$i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
********************************************************************************
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except me.
I'm always getting in the way of something...