gnucash-user Digest, Vol 134, Issue 5
LindenSys at aol.com
LindenSys at aol.com
Sat May 3 14:26:07 EDT 2014
How do I reset account column widths? When I move them they snap back to
their original sizing. I cannot find in any of the edit preferences or edit
account where the widths can be changed.
Thanks,
Harry
In a message dated 5/3/2014 9:01:37 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org writes:
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities (Alberto Dante)
2. Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities (Alberto Dante)
3. Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities (Jim Thompson)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 03 May 2014 14:44:36 +0200
From: Alberto Dante <alberto.dante at gmail.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities
Message-ID: <5364E4B4.5030602 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi Ian, yes, I agree, you are right...
> Two advantages of having investment accounts recorded as shares that I
> don't think you would gain for utilities are 1: you can use
> Finance:Quotes to have GnuCash update stock prices without manually
> entering their changing values all the time., and 2. (In the U.S. at
> least) you often need to report the actual numbers of shares purchased
> or sold on tax forms when reporting capital gains/losses, so having a
> record of your # of shares as well as their monetary value is an
> important piece of your financial record. There is nothing like that
> for utilities. If you run a business, for example and are deducting
> Utilities as a business expense, you only need to report the amount of
> money paid towards the bill, not the kWh of electricity used or therms
> of gas used. (Not a tax expert, but I think this is true for any
> business entity).
In Italy pricing of utilities is very complicated too...
> Another point is that pricing of utilities is often more complicated
> than price per unit. Again, I only have a local perspective, so maybe
> things are simpler in Italy, but my electric bill here has tiered
> pricing: after a certain number of kWh used each month, the price per
> kWh changes. There might be utilities that change rate as a function
> of the time of day (maybe I'm only thinking of phone bills, but it
> stands to reason utilities might implement peak pricing).
I have already lots of spradsheets, but I'd like simply to manage with
Gnucash the overall (two-monthly) bill amount, the quantity of energy
(kWh) and the average price unit (Euro/kWh) = bill amount / quantity of
energy, nothing else.
> Long story short, I don't know if the conversion from amount used to
> price is beyond the capability of entering into a GnuCash formula, but
> I do think it's more complicated than share prices and currency
> exchange rates. I'd add another vote to the "use a spreadsheet"
> column if you really want to understand the relationship between your
> usage and your bill, or if you're just trying to track your total
> usage, and use the price only as an decent approximation of your usage
> in GnuCash if you're trying to plan your budget or looking for ways to
> cut expenses.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 03 May 2014 14:44:55 +0200
From: Alberto Dante <alberto.dante at gmail.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities
Message-ID: <5364E4C7.5090408 at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi Peter,
as I replyed to Ian, I know and I have already lots of spreadsheets to
manage specific items, but I would have in Gnucash the global vision of
my Finance (and I would reduce the number of the spreadsheets).
In Italy pricing of utilities is similar to US I think, however very
complicate; but I'm not interested of this: I'd like simply to manage
with Gnucash the overall (two-monthly) bill amount, the quantity of
energy (kWh) and the average price unit (Euro/kWh) = bill amount /
quantity of energy, nothing else.
I understand that you suggest/prefer spreadsheets to to this.
But I think is not harm to modify existing (double) accounts, to give to
the users more flexibility.
Anyway, I'm only a beginner, and your opinion maybe is most important
for the community and the developers.
Thanks for your suggestions
Alberto
> I'm on a supply charge plus fixed kWh price for my electricity. But my
> supplier also has two other plans that have tiered pricing as you
> describe (they're only economic for people whose electricity consumption
> is higher than mine). The same supplier also has time-of-day pricing for
> electricity, so it's definitely not a scheme restricted to phone
> pricing. It would get even more complicated if I was on a solar feed-in
> plan.
>
> My natural gas and water charges are also tiered by quarterly usage.
>
> I track phone & ISP costs, water usage, home energy use and home CO2
> emissions in my utilities spreadsheet. I compare my actual electricity
> costs against the cost I would pay if I had time-of-day pricing instead
> (the difference has never been more than $2.50/quarter in either
> direction). I just use an estimate based on the previous year+10% for
> utility costs in my budget/planning spreadsheet (I never liked the
> Gnucash budgeting system).
>
> Peter
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sat, 3 May 2014 08:23:16 -0500
From: Jim Thompson <jthomps6 at gmail.com>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Subject: Re: Re: Best way to manage utilities
Message-ID:
<CAAKmR1hRn-q1PO+Anw_GsQVzdO2bJFm2_BaXD=_BWhRJSUa3RA at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Maybe not what you want, but I keep track of my auto fuel usage within
notes in GnuCash...
- View
- Double Line
When I fill the tank, I write the current odometer onto the slip - then
when entering the charge into GC I also enter the quantity of fuel and
odometer reading (gallons and miles in US) and can do a calculation of
miles/gal - and enter that as well...
So the extra entry stuff looks like this (last 2 visits to refuel)...
14.785 - 16,160 (23.33 mpg)
...
15.976 - 16,546 (24.16 mpg)
In the above example, after I enter gallons and total mileage..
16546 - 16160 = 386 miles
386 / 15.976 = 24.16 miles/gallon
Good enough for me...
Hope this helps.
Jim
On Sat, May 3, 2014 at 7:44 AM, Alberto Dante
<alberto.dante at gmail.com>wrote:
> Hi Ian, yes, I agree, you are right...
>
>> Two advantages of having investment accounts recorded as shares that I
>> don't think you would gain for utilities are 1: you can use
>> Finance:Quotes to have GnuCash update stock prices without manually
>> entering their changing values all the time., and 2. (In the U.S. at
>> least) you often need to report the actual numbers of shares purchased
>> or sold on tax forms when reporting capital gains/losses, so having a
>> record of your # of shares as well as their monetary value is an
>> important piece of your financial record. There is nothing like that
>> for utilities. If you run a business, for example and are deducting
>> Utilities as a business expense, you only need to report the amount of
>> money paid towards the bill, not the kWh of electricity used or therms
>> of gas used. (Not a tax expert, but I think this is true for any
>> business entity).
>>
> In Italy pricing of utilities is very complicated too...
>
>> Another point is that pricing of utilities is often more complicated
>> than price per unit. Again, I only have a local perspective, so maybe
>> things are simpler in Italy, but my electric bill here has tiered
>> pricing: after a certain number of kWh used each month, the price per
>> kWh changes. There might be utilities that change rate as a function
>> of the time of day (maybe I'm only thinking of phone bills, but it
>> stands to reason utilities might implement peak pricing).
>>
> I have already lots of spradsheets, but I'd like simply to manage with
> Gnucash the overall (two-monthly) bill amount, the quantity of energy
(kWh)
> and the average price unit (Euro/kWh) = bill amount / quantity of energy,
> nothing else.
>
>> Long story short, I don't know if the conversion from amount used to
>> price is beyond the capability of entering into a GnuCash formula, but
>> I do think it's more complicated than share prices and currency
>> exchange rates. I'd add another vote to the "use a spreadsheet"
>> column if you really want to understand the relationship between your
>> usage and your bill, or if you're just trying to track your total
>> usage, and use the price only as an decent approximation of your usage
>> in GnuCash if you're trying to plan your budget or looking for ways to
>> cut expenses.
>>
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