Time tracking in GnuCash

[Ariel]

On Mon, 5 Feb 2007, Luigi Bai wrote:

> As a consultant, one thing I miss from my old program is tracking time.
> I'm hacking it right now by having an asset account called "Hours Bank"
> which has an entry for each time interval; the value is interval * rate,
> and the memo documents the interval. Each entry is a transfer from the
> correct income account. (This is of course hand calculated for now). My
> invoice posts items against the Hours Bank, which moves the asset to
> A/R. This works nicely in terms of tying up correctly; however, I'm not
> entirely sure that the Hours Bank is a real asset (although I guess they
> are - they're not invoiced yet but can be, according to the contract).
> The "Hours Bank" account doesn't work if it's an A/R account.
>
> What I'd like to do is set up two GUI dialogs to make this easier. One
> would probably be under Business->Time Tracking, and would ask which
> Customer/Job to post against, the rate, and the interval (start end). In
> a perfect world, I would be able to retrieve the account information
> from the Customer/Job - which asset account and which income account get
> involved. In a pinch, I guess I could instead just have the dialog do
> that for now.
>
> The second dialog would be involved during the creation of the invoice.
> It'd ask for which Hours Bank asset account to debit, and show a list of
> transactions; clicking on more than one would cause them to be summed
> for the invoice line item.

I like the idea, but at least for now: why not just create invoices, don't 
post them, and add entries (line items) to the invoice for each time 
block. Then you don't need a complicated Hours Bank.

 	-Ariel