Opinion: "virtual" use of gnucash

[Raphaël Maville]

Hi!

A few month ago, I asked if gnucash could be used to do "virtual"
accounting; I did not knew what I wanted to say. This idea came from the
ambiguous french word "Actions", exact translation of the english word
"Stocks" in accounting (stock options)... the english word, understood
by all french, is this time meaningful that the french word!

So, today, I spent half an hour to explore this; close to my classic
accounting, I keep a "papersheet" or a spreadsheet of my car (gasoil,
repair, etc.) and of my stocks of professional tools: this is useless!

To simplify all this, I kept this exploration on an example:

Example of professional tools: stamps, paper and letters...
I created a stock account for each of them; I already own these, so they
are asset accounts of subtype "stock".
- While creating the accounts, I created a new security/currency type
"template" named of course "stamp", "paper", "letter", for accounts of
the same names, and subaccounts corresponding to the given format and
values ("A4" for paper, "fast price" for stamps, "classic" for letters,
etc...).
- I did debit from a cash account (I  paid all with cash, and kept the
bills).
- I did credit (withdraw) from them to some expense accounts, by
example, for a post mail: one sheet of paper A4, one letter, one stamp
to the "Post office" expense account.

- It was long to create this, and seems long to use; but from the
expense account, it is possible to create once a split transaction,  and
then duplicate it with another date... it is not so long!

- Of course, all this work to record a simple letter sent for 0,55 euros
seems to be stupid, but this is an example! And if this is a
professional use, and you send 1 letters 365 days by year, this is
200,75 euros : this is not so stupid to record it!

For a car, it is the same: but it is needed to create a
currency/security for everything: gasoil, car park, repair...
- I did not explore how to use the virtual security/currency
"kilometres" (or miles) for a car accounting with gnucash. Perhaps
another time!

For all the "advantages in kind" received or given, it seems possible to
use gnucash too, but a currency/security has to be created for each
different advantage in kind, in some income and expense accounts, to
some asset or liability accounts.


All this seem to run well, except three problems:
- Gnucash told me that I could not use a cash account to debit the stock
accounts; but finally, gnucash recorded the transactions. It is probably
the same for credit ?
- I reopened gnucash from the command line, with LANG=C to have the menu
names in english, and then I had this message:
;;; WARNING (gnc:resolve-unknown-comm: can't calculate rate for  EUR
6.05  =  11 PTT  to  $0.00)
- There is of course no "quote source information" ; by now, you cannot
"Get online quotes": perhaps on the future!

All this is curious: I think gnucash was created to account money; but
it is possible to esasy account something else! Everything else ?


Are there other experiences ? Opinion ?


Have a Nice day!
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