budgeting

[Josh Sled]

On Mon, Oct 01, 2001 at 04:04:12PM -0700, nigel_gnucash-devel@unos.net wrote:

| Maybe what we should really be talking about is the *function* of a
| budgeting subsystem.

Definitely; see follow-on mail.

| In my mind, the purpose of a budget is to tell me how much money I have
| left to spend in a given period on a given type of item.  That's what I
| want the budget to do.

Seems right.

[I think we have different ideas about a) what level of detail it
includes and b) how the implementation works to tell you those things,
but "yes". ;) ]

| I'm not interested in a budget that calculates interest on float,
| calculates finance charge interest on purchases, tells me which account
| to put my savings in, or any of that.  

Well, I've always thought that these were optional, second-order functions.
However, it maybe useful to think about them now --- if it turns out that
a simple change now can make integrating that functionality much easier
later, we should probably do so.

| I want to know if, given the
| constraints that *I* have set, I can afford to buy a DVD player this
| month without adversely affecting my ability to pay rent, buy groceries,
| etc.

What are the nature of the constraints?

Is that decision made with knowledge of [available] lines of credit?
Should the budgeting system [be able to] tell you: "if you charge it,
but you don't have enough savings ATM".

If you plan to buy the DVD 6-months in advance, should the budgeting
system encourage/help you to save up that money for it?
What about Christmas gifts?
Or a vacation?

| I'm not suggesting that all those other features are boring and useless
| - far from it!  Some of those calculations are *extremely* interesting
| to me (especially the interest on float one).  It's just that I don't
| think those features belong in the budgeting subsystem.

Or, maybe not in the first cut of a budgeting system...  or, you may very
well be right.

In the follow-on mail, let me know if you think that my Workbench idea
should be part of a "Budgeting" system, or part of something else... and
if so, what else?

| Why does a business user use a budget?

This is a very interesting question... while nothing jumps out at me as
being substantially different between personal and business budgeting
[except the size and granularity of the numbers involved], I could be very
wrong... hopefully someone can grab {small,medium,large}-business-finance
friends of theirs and get a one-two-page "business-budgeting
summary"... though I know this is asking too much.

...jsled