MS-Money user so GNUcash newbie and first post

[John Layman]

I  switched to GNUCash from Money Home & Business when Microsoft pulled the
plug.  The answers to your questions can all be found in the tutorial.  I
advise you to invest in reading it carefully.  (Your three questions can all
be answered  in the affirmative.)   GNUCash is a double-entry system, and
you have enormous flexibility where classification is concerned by rolling
your own chart of accounts.

I did not attempt to convert Money data other than investment-related
transactions.  These converted fairly easily, but the conversion must be
done account by account.  In the case of investment data, you need to think
through how to (for example) structure a brokerage account, the individual
investments and cash account.  Conversion does require both thought and
work.  I converted two or three times before I was satisfied with the
result.

I did not attempt to convert historic data other than investments.  I cannot
imagine having 11 years of data in a Money file, as I always found Money
became intolerably slow at around three-years worth of data.  I used Money
for many years, but always archived a year's worth of detail annually.  I
planned and prepared for cutover to GNUCash on January 1, then ran the two
in parallel for 7 or 8 months before cutting the cord to Money.  It made for
double work, but gave me a cross-check and margin of comfort.

Unfortunately, GNUCash  has no shortage of irksome quirks and buggy behavior
on Windows.  In particular, it suffers from display anomalies that cause
parts of the display to disappear, and phantom transaction lines to open up.
The user interface is, frankly, horrid as far as consistency and ease-of-use
are concerned (access to Customer and Vendor "tables" is a piece of work not
even a geek could love.)  But once you've learned your way around the
quirks, there is a great deal to like about GNUCash.  Through bitter
experience, I came to loathe Intuit long ago.  While I would love to have a
software product more polished than GNUCash, Quicken or Quickbooks ain't it.
I use GNUCash both for personal financial accounting and for the books of a
small business.  I'm hopeful that some of its weaknesses will be resolved in
future relases.

-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org
[mailto:gnucash-user-bounces at gnucash.org] On Behalf Of Ian Waddington
Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2010 4:11 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: MS-Money user so GNUcash newbie and first post

Hi

 

Hopefully I have got this post right, I have never used a mailing list
manager before, I'm more used to the traditional forum approach.

 

I have been using MS-Money in the UK since day one, in fact I was a beta
tester on several of the UK versions. My current 40Mb UK 2005 file has 11
years' worth of data and is struggling with some serious performance issues
which seem to have been made worse by a recent move to Windows 7.  I've a
number of options for continuing with Money, including archiving, virtual
machines or a new file from say Jan 1.  Very mindful I'm using a very
unsupported product and that one day it might just all stop I have decided
to explore alternatives so installed GNUcash 2.3.15 to have a look and play.

 

I am sure all my questions have been asked before so my first question is
whether or not there is a list of questions for ex Money users? If so could
someone point me in the right direction.

 

If not my questions so far are

 

1, I am used to recording a Payee for each transaction. This helps me find
things at a later date. Is there a way to record this information?

2, I make extensive use of classifications to give an extra dimension to
reporting and tracking, two examples, to track household decorating project
to track all expenditure against that project irrespective of the account
(or category), or to track the total cost of a holiday, a classification
allows you to report on a quite disparate set of transactions.

3, Memo field to capture information about a transaction, for example it was
a Toaster or the car mileage and litres purchased on a full receipt.

 

So far I believe I could probably do all the above with a structured
Description field but I'm not yet sure how successful that would be for
subsequent searches and would ideally like something a little more
structured. Perhaps, I can define my own fields into the database, is there
a way?

 

I also have some non-Money related questions

4, Is there any best practice guidance about protecting my email address
using this type of mail manager?

5, IE complains about the GNUcash site certificate, why is this?

6, Is there a sample file somewhere that would give me a head start with my
evaluation?

 

Thank you for your help

 

 

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