Planning future expenditure

[Paddy Landau]

Several interesting replies to this thread, thank you. Judging by the
replies, many people need this feature and have found workarounds, but none
of them entirely satisfactory.

> I think the issue is that, primarily, GnuCash is accounting software
> not financial planning software.
> i.e its purpose is to record what happened, not what is going to
> happen or what might happen.

If that really were the case, why include features for budgeting, scheduled
transactions, mortgage calculations and investments? What you describe is
bookkeeping, not accounting.

I have worked with accounting packages both large and small and with
accountants, and they all had ways to manage the finances. Accounting is
much more than bookkeeping, and GnuCash is about accounting.

> isn't this what the budgeting feature is used for?

As I understand it, budgeting is quite different. I have used it in Quicken,
and it does work, but not for this purpose.

If you feel that GnuCash's version can be used successfully for this
feature, please correct me!

> I simply run a spreadsheet for our main transaction account...

I thought of that, but then you have two separate applications with
duplication of data and significant extra workload. Doing that, I might as
well put everything into spreadsheets :)

> Perhaps you do not realize that the scheduled transactions wizard ...
> can be set up ...
> ... They can be scheduled to repeat ...

Yes, I am aware of this flexibility. Even though GnuCash's implementation is
superior to Quicken's, it still doesn't solve the problem.

> I download
> transactions from my bank roughly twice a month to get the real numbers
>for periodic expenditures (usually Debit card purchases) and I enter
> real numbers for monthly bills when they arrive.

I reconcile my bank statements daily, so no need for me to download
anything. My predicted numbers are as accurate as I can make them, often to
the penny. So, for me, predicting cash flow tends to be pretty accurate even
when estimates are involved.

I think I shall open a new thread to ask about add-ons. If this is possible,
I shall explore getting someone to write this feature for me, and when done,
release it to the world. The world needs a cheap replacement to the current
money managers, because the commercial ones have become far too expensive
for personal or small-business use.

Unfortunately, without this feature, it is a deal-killer for me. This is
sad, as GnuCash is in all other respects a competent and comprehensive
package. So, I would like to solve it.



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