gnucash-devel digest, Vol 1 #390 - 1 msg

[aperomsik@mail.com]

Bill Gribble wrote...
g> There are several major personal finance features, including budgeting
g> and scheduled transactions, that got dropped from the 2.0 release
g> which we want to have as a gnucash-2.2 update as soon as possible;
g> that means realistically 4-6 developer-months of additional time.

In all the (recently sparse) discussion of budgeting and scheduled
transactions, people seem to like to lump scheduled transactions in
with budgeting. I still think this is a mistake. Budgeting is a big
scary complex subsystem which many people will not use at all, whereas
scheduled transactions can be a pretty straightforward affair which
is more broadly applicable. 

Basic scheduled transaction support could consist of...

1. UI for creating scheduled transactions.
2. Incorporating scheduled transactions in the register.
3. UI for converting "scheduled" to "entered" transactions.

To elaborate a bit...

1. UI for creating scheduled transactions.

   My suggestion: a new entry "Repeat..." could be added to the
   right-click menu for transactions in the register. When "Repeat..."
   is selected, a simple dialog would ask the user to specify the
   starting date, how often (annual/quarterly/monthly/semimonthly/
   biweekly/weekly), and how many times (default: indefinite). There
   should also be a checkbox for "record automatically". The wording
   needs work.

2. Incorporating scheduled transactions in the register.

   In the general configuration dialog, there should be an entry field
   for the number of days in advance that scheduled transactions
   should begin to appear in the register.

   When opening a register window, GnuCash would check whether any
   scheduled transactions should occur within the specified window
   into the future, and add any to the register which have not been
   added previously. A new reconcile status (maybe "N") would be used
   to indicate that these transactions are only scheduled and have not
   yet occurred, unless the user had checked "record automatically"
   when scheduling the transaction.

3. UI for converting "scheduled" to "entered" transactions.

   In the right-click menu for a transaction with "N" in its reconcile
   field, a new option "Enter..." would change the Reconcile field to
   the default for entered, uncleared transactions.

My guess is that someone working on this full-time could pull it off
in a week.

Of course, talk is cheap... unfortunately, I haven't had much time to
contribute to development. But I have been thinking about it. As I
mentioned in a previous message, scheduled transactions are the
feature that got me thinking about switching from Quicken, and the
feature that has kept me from switching so far. I suspect that I am
not alone in this regard.

--
Aaron Peromsik         |  For thinner oatmeal, add more water.
aperomsik@mail.com     |  For thicker oatmeal, add less water.