Budgeting - Let's decide what we want!

[Jesse Guardiani]

Matthew Vanecek wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-08-29 at 09:41, Jesse Guardiani wrote:
>> Stewart V. Wright wrote:
>> 
>> [...]
>> 
>> > 2.2 The Problem
>> > 
>> > The problem with this sort of budgeting is that
>> > currently it is not possible to implement this virtual
>> > division of income in a simple manner that also allows
>> > the easy reconciling of bank statements that (in my
>> > opinion) is a great aspect of GnuCash.
>> > 
>> > I do however have a suggested method of implementing
>> > such a system which I believe will add to the strengths
>> > of GnuCash without changing the behaviour for anyone
>> > who doesn't wish to work in this manner. This is an
>> > important requirement of any budgeting extension to
>> > GnuCash. Those who don't want to budget in GC shouldn't
>> > have to do anything differently to the way they do now.
>> > 
>> > 3 Budgeting in GnuCash
>> > 
>> > This section suggests a slight extension to the account
>> > structure of GnuCash to allow the budgeting approach of 2.1
>> >  without modifying the current behaviour for most users.
>> > 
>> > 3.1 Virtual Accounts
>> > 
>> > Budgeting is often achieved by the use of an imaginary
>> > division of income and expenses into user defined
>> > categories. Keeping with the terminology of GnuCash
>> > these imaginary categories will be known as Virtual
>> > Accounts (VAs).
>> > 
>> > In summary VAs are a imaginary asset/liability/expense
>> > source that are used to divide income and expenses as
>> > defined by the user. The major difference from regular
>> > Accounts is that a leaf VA will mirror all expenses to
>> > the first (real) Account that sits above it.
>> 
>> I am a new (started about 1 month ago. Feel like I have
>> a good grasp on the functionality now.) GnuCash user,
>> and a programmer/sys admin.
>> 
>> I think the above can be accomplished WITHOUT implementing
>> an entirely new "Virtual Account" concept. I think the current
>> GnuCash subaccounts are adaquate.
>> 
> 
> The 'Virtual Accounts' is the proper way to implement budgetting.  A
> budget is a separate entity.  It's relationship to your accounts is very
> loose and malleable.  You can associate a Budget account with an actual
> account of a completely different name.  The budget is editable separate
> from the accounts it is supposed to be guiding.

OK. Fair enough. Would my idea help people stay within their budget accounts
then? I use a variation of what I described in managing my accounts against
a flat file budget. It works pretty well. But what I described earlier would
make what I do even easier.

-- 
Jesse Guardiani, Systems Administrator
WingNET Internet Services,
P.O. Box 2605 // Cleveland, TN 37320-2605
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