Newbie migration issues

[Robert Uhl]

Rod Engelsman <rodengelsman at ruraltel.net> writes:
>
> Absolutely. Everything except the strictly-for-business parts. And
> frankly, they sorta suck. Actually, it's just that they are woefully
> incomplete. There is absolutely *no* documentation on the two issues
> that are giving me a hard time (Loan Druid and Tax Options).

Well, it's free software: that means that you have the freedom to
improve it and the freedom to improve the documentation.  So feel free
to contribute better docs anytime:-)

> Furthermore, it turns out that the Financial Calculator (at least on
> my installation) gives very inaccurate answers.  I say this by
> comparing the answers it gives vs. the results using OpenOffice.org
> Calc.

Well, the source code's available.  Can you discover what's wrong with
the calculator?  If you can, write a patch and submit it.  Most of Guile
is written in Scheme, which is relatively easy to pick up in some ways.
It's a functional programming language of the Lisp flavour.

> On the other hand, I was able to devise a spreadsheet that calculates
> the interest and principal split to match to the penny what my
> lender's records show.  So for now I'm just going to use that and
> enter the split by hand.

If it's the same payment each month, the Scheduled Transaction Editor
may be of use.  With enough cleverness you might even be able to con it
into properly calculating the ratio of principal to interest (it can
store a variable for the number of times a transaction has been created,
although this is undocumented).  I don't bother, since the ratio changes
so very slowly: I just correct the numbers twice a year (they're only
off by a buck or two).

-- 
Robert Uhl <http://public.xdi.org/=ruhl>
A recruitment consultant I know thinks the most important quality in
a winner is to be lucky.  To avoid wasting his time with unlucky
applicants, he takes half the resumes piled on his desk and throws
them straight in the bin.                           --John Ramsden