GST accountant questions (was Re: Inventory and GST)

[Bret Busby]

On 23 Jun 2003, Derek Atkins wrote:

> Date: 23 Jun 2003 10:26:47 -0400
> From: Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU>
> To: Bret Busby <bret at busby.net>
> Cc: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: GST accountant questions (was Re: Inventory and GST)
> 
> Bret,
> 
> are you offering to create this plug-in system you propose?
> 
> -derek
> 
> 

At present, my involvement is limited to giving my ideas and opinions, 
due to my circumstances.

It would be after August, before I could start to get involved in such a 
project.

It is not that I would not like to do it; but I have experience in 
overcommitment and its damage, and I am trying to recover from an 
illness that has lasted too long, and to consequently catch up with very 
pressing commitments.

If it is not started when I can become involved, I would probably like 
to become involved in the creation of a (relatively) simple inventory 
system integration, that can be used for both home inventory and for 
business. That would, I believe, require two separate inventory modules 
(although some may disagree with my perception of this); one for goods 
held as assets (for home inventory, and for business assets), that could 
include fields such as purchase price and (estimated) replacement cost, 
that could be used for balance sheet reporting, apart from insurance 
estimates, and, the other for saleable stock, which would require 
slightly different fields, including more detail fields for stock 
location, and, fields relating to taxes and retail, or, onselling (for 
wholesalers), pricing, etc, apart from tax rates per stock line. The 
assets type inventory system may be already in GnuCash, or regarded as 
being present in GnuCash (I am not sure), but it would also need fields 
such as depreciation rate (or appreciation rate) estimate fields, as 
different items have different depreciation/appreciation rates, etc (if 
it is not already there).

As for the tax stuff; I have even a more fun (!) type module that I 
would like to try to create - the specs would be a bit more stable than 
the Australian GST requirements, but it would still be a bit difficult, 
and the usage would be very limited.

The GST stuff, I would stay away from, myself, with the proverbial 
crossed fingers gesture (as in desperately trying to ward off daemons 
and vampyres), as that area is, I believe, too murky for the likes of 
me, and is a Pandora's box. Incorporating the inputting of the GST 
information, MIGHT not be too bad, but, the outputting, would, I 
believe, be horrendous, if statutory requirements are to be met, due to 
the apparently ever-changing requirements of the reporting (well, here 
in Australia, anyway).

I could (sometime), assist with documentation, including (but not 
limited to) proof-reading, like advising of (hopefully) errors, such as 
the reference to GnuCash being "slimed" and being a "manger", on the 
website, I think on the Roadmap page, referring to PDA's sliming GnuCash 
(sounds like we need the Ghostbusters! ;) ), and the "financial manger" 
in the same paragraph (this sounds like religious devotion to GnuCash :) 
).

Also, since my "other half" programs handheld computers or pocket 
computers, or whatever they are now called, as part of her work, she MAY 
be interested in the PDA porting, although what she does is VB and .NET 
stuff, mainly, at work, and her C skills need refreshing, but, at this 
stage, that also would need to wait until after August, if she is 
interested. She is wanting to investigate mono and portable .NET, or 
whatever it is named; the open source alternatives to .NET. I assume 
that GnuCash does not yet have interfacing for GPRS, for those handheld 
computer things.

>From my understanding, from the website, data storage in GnuCash, is 
primarily using XML file format, rather than PostgreSQL, so I would need 
to investigate that. If inventory systems components of GnuCash, could 
use Perl/PosgreSQL, that would be good.

It is one of those things where, when I have the time, I would have to 
investigate the programming of GnuCash, in depth, to see how it is done, 
and, bring my skills in the necessary development tools, up to a good 
enough standard; then, to start the process. Likewise with my other 
half, if she would also get involved.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................