gnucash-devel digest, Vol 1 #726 - 8 msgs

[Dave Peticolas]

On 01 Jul 2001 13:18:26 -0400, Michael T. Garrison Stuber wrote:
> > It sounds pretty interesting, could you give some more
> > examples of its use?
> 
> Sure, first I'll explain what I use it for.  In my household somethings are 
> budgeted (sp?) others are not.  For example, we don't have a set grocery 
> budget, we spend whatever we need to buy good food.  On the other hand we 
> have a fixed budget for miscellaneous expenses.  We do almost all our 
> purchases through a single credit card.  I download the QFX file from my 
> bank, and convert to QIF and import it.  We keep separate checking accounts 
> for budget and non-budget items.  This addition to the transaction report 
> allows me to get a report of how much was spent on the credit card on 
> budget items, versus how much was spent on non budget items, with 
> subtotals, so that I can debit the appropriate checking account it's share 
> of the credit bill when it comes due.
> 
> Another way of looking at is this:  Let's say I run a widget manufacturing 
> business.  I have a single corporate line of credit.  My expenditures may 
> be paid for out of operating funds, or I may choose to use my line of 
> credit.  I have accounts for each of my major components, plastic, 
> hardware, and circuit boards.  The additions to this report would allow me 
> to report on only hardware expenditures which I paid for on credit.
> 
> Or here is another:  I have a series of bank accounts and a series of 
> expense accounts.  My dot-com went under and I am interested in controlling 
> my spending.  To start with I want to see how much I'm spending on luxury 
> items.  I might have used any of my accounts to pay for them.  I select my 
> bank accounts and then filter on the appropriate expense accounts (maybe 
> the massage, personal trainer, and gambling accounts)
> 
> Maybe I want to take a look at all my bank interest except for account X, 
> but I only have one bank account interest account.  I can do a report on 
> bank interest as the source account, but exclude account X.
> 
> On last example:  I want to closely examine my spending, but certain things 
> just don't matter I will pay them no matter what.  I report on the accounts 
> I spend from excluding expense accounts for the utilities and the mortgage. 
> This lets me see how much I'm spending on discretionary items.

Ok, that sounds very useful. Thanks in advance for your patch!


> Beyond this it would be cool to provide a check box beside each transaction 
> in the transaction report so that you could select the box and have the 
> transaction not included in the subtotal.  This would be real useful for 
> excluding wierd one time expenditures when analyzing your accounts.  Maybe 
> I'll do that . . . maybe I won't.

That would be a lot more work -- you would need to add support for html
controls to the reporting infrastructure.

dave