Budgeting prototype

[Matthew Vanecek]

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 16:13, Derek Neighbors wrote:
> Darin Willits said:
> > On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 11:03, Stewart V. Wright wrote:
> >>
> >> Another point or two of clarification:  (For this I am using [B] to
> >> specify a budget category, as apposed to a regular account)
> >>  * Would I be able to link Expenses:Dining and Expenses:Groceries to
> >>    the same [B]Expenses:Food category?
> >>    I guess so, from figure 5 on your page.
> >>  * Will I be able to see all the transactions for a particular budget
> >>    category?
> >
> > Maybe another window could handle this.  Some sort of customised account
> > register with transactions for a period for all the accounts in that
> > catagory.  A right click menu option could bring up this register for
> > the selected category.  Come to think of it this might go hand in hand
> > with the suggestion for a planned/actual view of the budgeting
> > information.  If you see that you were over budget in a certain category
> > for a period you could bring up this window to see the transactions
> > which contributed to that situation.
> 
> Maybe I'm psycho but why wouldn't you just make your accounts:
> 
> Expenses:Food
> Expenses:Food:Dining
> Expenses:Food:Groceries
> 

Some food is not food. =P  Perhaps some people would rather see a
flatter view, rather than drilling down.  Me, I like more of a tree view
like above.  Different folks...

In any case, you ought to be able to link multiple accounts to a single
budget category, even if only to satisfy people that set up like
"Expenses:Grocery" and "Expenses:Fine Dining" accounts.

Viewing the transactions that contributed to the actual amount for a
given budget period really isn't complicated (conceptually). Gnucash
already provides a Search for Transactions capability that can be tapped
into.

For a given budget period and category, select "view transactions for
budget category in period X", where period X represents fromDate to
toDate.  The Budget engine formats a query just like the "Search For
Transactions" dialog: "Select transactions where date-entered between
fromDate and toDate and accounts in (list of linked accounts with
subaccounts)", and displays them in the typical register.  All that is
built in already.  All the budget needs to do is hook into the
engine/GUI with the appropriate query.  So, to the 2nd point of the
original poster above, I think that viewing the transactions should not
be that hard to do.  Darin?


-- 
Matthew Vanecek
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(115),10);'
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For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me.
I'm always getting in the way of something...