Ofx and Budgeting support

[Matt Kowske]

hey all,

personally, I'm really looking forward to a budgeting system in
GNUcash.  it's the one main thing it's missing for my needs.  i just
read over some of the things said in the archives and there seems to
have been some really interesting ideas proposed.  essentially, i'd want
a budgeting system where you would be able to set limits for individual
income/expense categories and would be able to see at any point if you
are under or over these set limits.  furthermore, i think gnucash should
interact with the user by looking at certain budgets that are, say,
under-budget and using the excess money there to help with another
budget that might be a bit over.  

jsled, i saw something you stated in the archives to the effect of:

"You've overspent in category 1, but underspent in category 2, so you're
okay for this month.  Would you like to change the size of these
categories
in your budget to be more appropriate?"   If no, then the user is aware
that they need to limit spending in category 1."

I like the idea of that interaction and i think that is something i'd
definatley value in a budget system.  the limits that the user would set
on budgets should be able to adapt with new spending needs and
unexpected sudden costs.  this shouldn't be automatic obviously, or the
whole point of even having a budget is kind of lost.  gnucash should
warn and advise the user of any changes to the budget.  if a particular
category is over-budget, the user could maybe be able to choose which of
their other budgets they would like to take away from for this month to
compensate. something to that effect anyway, does this sound like
something that could work?

well that's my 2 cents for now.

matt kowske
(junco)


On Tue, 2001-09-18 at 22:59, Josh Sled wrote:
    On Tue, Sep 11, 2001 at 08:56:48PM -0700, Nathan@unos.net wrote:
    
    | On 10 Sep, Willits, Darin wrote:
    | <snip>
    | > I would really like to start using gnucash on a daily basis but these two
    | > things are standing in my way at the moment.  I am willing to help out and
    | > work on these things but before I start I wanted to make sure I am not
    | > duplicating any effort.
    | <snip>
    | 
    | I'm interested to know who might be working on budgeting, also.  I've
    | started to implement some systems on my local system here, but I don't
    | currently have time to prepare and submit patches (maybe in a couple
    | months).  I'd really like to talk, though, about what the budgeting
    | system should look like.
    
    That'd be me.
    
    I intend to start work on budgeting once scheduled transactions are
    finished... that's probably ~2 months out.
    
    I think talking/design work is very appropriate... I tried very persistantly
    for a few months to pin down a good budgeting design, and failed to
    come up with something that said "that's it" to me immediately.... and
    I'm really curious about how people think the budgeting stuff should
    work/look... the best thing to do would be to read the relevant threads of
    the -devel archives from ~Nov/Dec 2000, then post your thoughts to -devel,
    or try and meet up with me in #gnucash...
    
    ...jsled
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