[GNC-dev] [off-topic] Re: Adding module to make GnuCash more valuable

Sun Jul 28 06:32:20 EDT 2019

Christopher,
I intended to let this thread fade out after your comment. But actually
I found a solution of the double-entry issue Derek was talking about -
within GnuCash, no amendments needed.WM also said it is out of scope.
Sorry, but couldn't disagree more.
First thing - accounting software is made to do the _book-keeping_.
Managing the ocean B/L is exactly this - keeping records and
transactions. It is a bill after all :-)Second  - you go far beyond the
scope of what I mean. It's as my bad - I'm not good at explanations and
I know it.
I'm going completely off-topic, so feel free not to waste you time with
below. 
<off-topic>Third - you cannot evaluate enough the fact that you have an
actual freight-forwarder in this list. I would use this module. After
all, this is my proficiency area. I cannot become a dentist or musician
after so many years in maritime. They are not only about moving boxes
and containers around the world, but also crewing (imho, the only real
civilian HR), ship's agency (ever heard about husbandry agreements?)
and a shipping line. Neither can become a programmer - I lack of basic
knowledge and more important - interest. People are more interesting to
me. It is what it is. Before sharing the presentation with you I got
some feedback from former colleagues, some of them were my teachers
back in 2012/13. One of them offered me a support and revision of the
process. She told me it looks like a schoolbook for ocean FF. A GNU-
friend with ships brokerage experience also offered me his support and
asked if we may apply GNU GPL. Well, we have to, because i found the
perfect software and we don't need to invent the warm water from
scratch. He is also using GnuCash.

Who else would use it? My former managers, who said they are open to
new ideas after we ended our work relations this month and said they
would like to stay in touch. And any small FF company around the globe
that wants to use a proper and simple tool. The same principles I'm
talking about are in force everywhere in shipping ocean cargoes.
Biggest FF in the world - they are still printing originals, although
they can afford it to develop it as smart contracts and turn them into
a world standard. They have the knowledge, the proficiency and the
resources to do it. Yet their software engineers have to solve pending
software issues, even if they have an idea how to make it happen.
This is actually a huge market. 

Tell me if I'm wrong: the biggest problem software or web developers
meet is the proper definition of the processes they have to implement.
Projects are assigned by owners and managers, who are focused on
different things - business flow and not the actual operations flow.
Most of them take it as if developers read minds. They just tell what
the software should look/act like and wait for programmers to do their
magic. Others don't have the knowledge and do not include employees who
have it at initial stage. A big mistake. Thus, developers shall find
solutions of unknown problems and depending on their experience they
could be more or less successful. 
Software changes over time. If something worked for 10 years, who can
assure us a new cutting-edge technology wouldn't make it obsolete in
couple of years?Take the clouds and social media - would anyone of you
suggest 20 years ago that people will share all their personal data
with corporations completely voluntary? That they will upload their old
photos to see how would they look like in 10 or 20 years? I didn't even
imagine that. And now my friends are complaining FB offers them
friendship with people they don't want to meet any more. 
I started with free software back in 1999 with RH 6.0. Last month it
took me 3 days to get rid off RHEL 8.0. It became the very monster we
fought against in our small country. For 20 years it lost one of its
default features and namely - to enable read/write access to other
file-systems on internal disks or external media. Instead, it asks you
for additional installation and offers to put the content in its boxes
& containers. Microsoft bought github. Apple bought Intel-division, may
be they intend to switch back to PowerPC. Now everybody is embracing
the blockchain technology and yet it doesn't provide a proper algorithm
to solve its internal issues. Google has become a search engine of
whoever pays for advertising. Netscape became a browser that checks
something with Google before displaying web-pages. And the only up-to-
date open-source solution for issuing b/l is over-complicating the
process by including non-necessary layers, parties and software
solutions, that didn't pass the check for reliability yet. Small and
big balloons everywhere. Once they start to explode due overheating,
the fun-party will be over.
Where does GnuCash fit in this picture?
GnuCash provides database with contracting parties, transactions and
templates. Locally! It even shows fancy diagrams for managers and
aqbanking for money-flow. I couldn't think of better stand-alone
program to fit the needs of small companies. 

My experience with it? At first I started directly with translation in
2008. Didn't work well. Then I installed and started using it so that I
can check the location and context of the strings. Because lack of
knowledge how to generate .po files different people were engaged to do
this for me over the years. '-)  A finance analyst at CISCO explained
to me some basic terms. The Bulgarian lead of the GNOME translation
project did the editorial work so that translation of GnuCash fits
GNOME's. Some of my friends used to send me screenshots of improper
translation. They are still using it. How many are the actual users in
Bulgaria - I have absolutely no idea. Perhaps less than ten. Our
largest forum for accountants was discussing that GnuCash is a great
tool, but lacks localisation. After it became a real thing, their
reaction was like "Someone fooled himself to translate it for free". No
problem with that - I told them it's me and how to find me if anything
is not ok. Silence :-) I completed the translation because I wanted to
do so. Even I consider myself lucky enough to know the right people to
help me.There were some details that wasn't still clear enough. So,
later I enrolled an online course of Wharton University for Financial
Accounting. Just out of curiosity. :-) Great course by the way.
Now I'm offering you my knowledge and I bet: its principles and
solutions at critical points might even help in projects you do for
money to support your life. I'm available for couple of weeks only,
because this fall I have to go back to work to support my life and my
dependants', too.And you are basically telling me you don't care about
learning the basics for free and implementing them?
</off-topic>
Last, but not least:
Did you actually lost interest of making your software useful to
numerous people? This is the big question for me.

Kind regards,Rosi

On Sat, 2019-07-27 at 09:35 +0000, Christopher Lam wrote:
> Rosi
> 
> The core of the issue is the different purposes and needs for your
> software vs a general-purpose bookkeeping software.
> 
> Your particular requirements have particular terminology that cannot
> be solved via GnuCash.
> 
> A different example is - we can shoehorn running a full medical
> practice into GnuCash database -- after all the system has customers
> (patients), vendors (suppliers), employees (staff), basic entries
> (notes), sending tests to lab (includes the invoicing), receiving
> results (reconciliation), etc but nobody will ever try fit in a full
> business into this software. GnuCash *can* be a small part of the
> solution, but the document management, tracking, authentication,
> signatures, etc must be a different tailor made product.
> 
> Good luck in your search!
> 
> On Fri, 26 Jul 2019 at 06:07, Rosi Dimova via gnucash-devel <
> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> wrote:
> > Hi Derek,
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > On 25 Jul 2019, at 17:51, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > 
> > > Rosi,
> > 
> > > 
> > 
> > > Rosi Dimova via gnucash-devel <gnucash-devel at gnucash.org> writes:
> > 
> > > ...
> > 
> > > I think the issue here is that GnuCash could be used to keep
> > track of
> > 
> > > the value of the B/L, and even record when the transfer happens,
> > but it
> > 
> > > does not have the capability to actually *transfer* the actual
> > B/L
> > 
> > > between entities.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > GnuCash doesn’t need to keep track on the actual value of the B/L.
> > There is no value in terms of accounting. It’s just a supporting
> > document as proof of service provided. 
> > 
> > Accountants do not collect any B/L’s. No one should. Only the
> > issuing party and the appointed agent on B/L. You either have paper
> > originals, or express/telex release. For B/L this is the only way
> > to identify the owner all over the world and it is recognised by
> > all involved entities. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > A bit off-topic:
> > 
> > The only values you can see on B/L are the rates of the transport
> > itself and they are not always obligatory. It’s “value” is only
> > defined in force majeure like General Average by calculating number
> > of packages or gross weight with special delivery rights (SDR).
> > That’s all. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > I think the closest you could get would perhaps be the business
> > features
> > 
> > > in terms of the Invoice operations, but I don't think that
> > applies here,
> > 
> > > either.  That's an AR operation.  You create the Invoice when to
> > 
> > > initiate the Receivable, and inform the customer that they owe
> > you
> > 
> > > money.  However, there is no document that shows when the invoice
> > has
> > 
> > > been paid, per se (there is the ability to re-print the invoice
> > and show
> > 
> > > the payments on it).  But I don't think that counts as a B/L.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > You are right, it doesn’t. And that explains why it cannot be done.
> > I was hoping that an additional template for printing will do and
> > adding document number (some ID) from the data base will maintain
> > the tracing of the b/l’s issued. Re-printing is forbidden for paper
> > originals - exactly three originals, no more, no less. And the
> > existing software still allows it. :)
> > 
> > I never thought the actual document will be part of the
> > transactions.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > GnuCash does not currently have any support for digital
> > signatures, nor
> > 
> > > does it have any way to import/sign/export a multi-stage Invoice
> > (or any
> > 
> > > other document).  And I'm with John (and everyone else) here.  I
> > don't
> > 
> > > think GnuCash is really the right tool to implement that.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > I agree with all of you now. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > > I will also note that in my $DAYJOB I am working on building an
> > 
> > > ownership transfer system sort of like a B/L but more designed
> > for IoT
> > 
> > > so that the end owner of a device and prove that it's the
> > device's owner
> > 
> > > (and then provision it) without requiring any UI on the device
> > itself.
> > 
> > > But again, it's not quite a B/L system, even though it has the
> > ownership
> > 
> > > provenence piece of a B/L system embedded in it.
> > 
> > > 
> > 
> > > Good Luck,
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Yeah, you all have day jobs, never had any doubt about that. Seems
> > there is nothing useful I can share with you. Your system sounds to
> > act exactly as B/L, perhaps on at least two layers like MBL & HBL.
> > If anyone is interested in this topic, feel free to contact me
> > personally. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Thank you for your patience and good luck to you, too!
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > Rosi
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > 
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> > 
> > gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> > 
> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
> > 