Budgeting?

[The Doctor What]

* Matthew Vanecek (mevanecek at yahoo.com) [030208 10:07]:
> On Sat, 2003-02-08 at 01:08, The Doctor What wrote:
> > X-GPG-Fingerprint: 23BC 0F41 9DB5 A70B B43C  3BE1 9090 E4B3 720D 3195
> > 
> > I have searched through the mail archives, and there isn't much in
> > the way of discussion about budgeting with GnuCash.
> > 
> 
> Actually, there's quite a bit of discussion.  It's a popular item.

Okay, then perhaps the comment I should have made was: The search
engine doesn't do a good job searching the pipermail archives.  I
spent a little time with it, and it tries showing what it thinks is
the newest and most important, but it's reading the timestamp from
the pipermail archive, which are all 'today'.  So it keeps showing
stuff from March 2000 as if it is current and new.

Maybe someone needs to change the timestamp after whatever program
sets the timestamps forward.

> > The "project goal" page says stuff about supplying budgeting
> > software for common users, but I don't actually see it in GnuCash
> > yet.
> > 
> 
> It's still a goal.  Q2 or Q3, maybe, but no promises.  There are a few
> people that want to work on it, with somewhat different ideas.  The guys
> know it's needed, though.

Is there someplace I can offer my experience in designing
applications (but not financial ones, just business)?

> 
> > I tried playing with the reports, to get a breakdown of how much I
> > spend/spent in a month, but the closest I could get is the
> > Transaction report, set for one month.  But it's a pain, because you
> > have to select *every* account you want, because it doesn't do
> > sub-accounts by default.
> > 
> 
> Try the Cash Flow report, in 1.8.0.  It's probably closer to what you
> want than the Transaction report.

I have Debian Woody, with 1.6.6.  I'll see if I can upgrade.  If I
do upgrade, can I downgrade later?  Will the data files still work?
Anyone know of a handy Gnucash apt source for woody?

> > BTW: I really think that on the reports, that you should be have two
> > nodes for each account that has a sub-account.  One for the account
> > and another for all the sub-accounts.  Because it's a pain
> > otherwise.
> > 
> 
> You're always welcome to file an RFE at bugzilla.gnome.org, detailing
> what you're looking for.  I don't quite understand what you mean by two
> nodes for each parent, nor why it's a pain.  Explain a little
> more--perhaps there's already something that would make you life easier.

I would like to make sure others understand before I submit an
RFE...

This is using GnuCash 1.6.6

Problem:
GnuCash has accounts built into a tree.  Each "node" in the tree is
an account.  In addition, each node can also contain sub-nodes
(sub-accounts).
If a user selects a node with sub-nodes, does the user mean:
a) Only that node, but not the sub-nodes
b) That node plus it's sub-nodes

Example:
In the transaction report, you can select which accounts to generate
a report from.  I clicked on "Expenses", meaning 'b' from above; to
include the Expenses account, plus all the sub-accounts.

The report gui interpreted this as 'a' from above; it generated a
report for only the Expeneses account, but did not include any
transactions from the sub-accounts.

Proposed Solution:
Provide separate places to click to choose behaviour 'a' and
behaviour 'b'

I hope this is clear.

Ciao!

-- 
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
	 -- Walt Kelly

The Doctor What: <fill in the blank>             http://docwhat.gerf.org/
docwhat at gerf.org                                                   KF6VNC