gnucash budget

[Bryan Larsen]

Gnucash people,

I just sent this too David Reno, who asked about budgeting.  I then
realized that it would probably be useful to send it to everybody.

..

Budget has not been worked on for over 1 year.  Sorry.  The code is
not usable as is, as they've changed the reporting framework for the
better.

However, it was a useful proof of concept.  I proved to my
satisfaction that there are workable alternatives to a monthly budget.

Why I wanted to do something different:

1) Any type of budget with a period of less than a year is useless,
because there are a lot of large expenses that happen less frequently
than once a month: Christmas gifts, car repairs, et cetera.

2) Any type of budget with a period longer than a week or two is
   longer than my attention span, and doesn't provide the instant
   feedback I was craving.

Solution:

enter budget information like this:

type 1) specific date (anniversary)
I get paid every second Friday.
I pay $1500 in rent on the first of every month.

type 2) continuous
$500 on car repairs every 6 months
$15 in food every day

type 3) advanced only: combination of the above
I spend $1000 on Christmas gifts in December

type 4) advanced only: anniversary with slack: probably leave out.
I spend $85 on Cable TV and Internet during the last week of every month

Reports look like this:  (or in a more succint format)

type 1)
report from January 12 to July 24th: 
You should have spent 6*1500=9000 on rent.  You actually spent $9000.
You are $0 above budget.

type 2, 3, 4) 
report from January 12 to July 3rd:
You have spent $550 on car repairs.  You are $50 over budget.  You
will have another $450 in your budget between July 12th 2001 and
January 12 2002.

report from January 12 to July 24th:
You have spent $450 on car repairs.  You are $50 under budget.  You
can spend up to $550 until January 12, 2002 and still stay on budget.

report from January 12 to July 24th:
You have spent $550 on car repairs.  You are on budget.  You can spend
up to $450 until January 12, 2002 and still stay on budget.

The summary lines only total the "You are $X over/under budget"
lines.  The extra information is slack that shows up on the budget
line as cycles roll over.

The code that I submitted was report only report code: the user
entered his budget by entering it as a scheme table directly into the
code.  Most of the code was to facilitate flexible report generation
(which has been superseded by their new report framework) and date
code to support arbitrary periods.

Bryan

-- 
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Bryan Larsen, Software & Miscellaneous
(613) 239-3830 x237, fax: (613) 239-0104
Analog Design Automation:  Analog Circuit Synthesis?  Problem Solved.