Budget Reporting Issues

[David T.]

Wm,

Thank you for your reply.

As for specific points you make:

1) I am not sure the earlier exercise to which you refer. I do know that there is a longstanding bug requesting report documentation, and also that this bug has languished. Can you give me a better reference from which to work specifically on documenting the Budget Reports?

2) My intention is to improve the documentation for the reports, although whether this will end up in the Help file or the Guide is not certain at this point. My predilection is to put it in the Guide.

3) You state that the only report that is useful or necessary is the Budget Report; if that is true, perhaps we can shortcircuit the entire exercise by removing these other reports if they are truly not useful or used. 

*** Can anyone else weigh in on these reports? Are they actually useful? Is anyone using them? If no one is using them, and they are not useful, perhaps they could be removed from the package, thus eliminating the entire documentation issue altogether.


4) Since you feel that understanding budgets will explain to me how the budget reports are intended to work, please tell me what I should understand about budgets in order to understand the reports. I freely admit that my undersanding of the budget features is superficial, but I do understand that they can establish predicted amounts for a user-selected set of accounts over a user-selected set of time periods. I also understand that the Budget Report allows me to view budget and actual data on an entire set of books for a given budget. Please tell me how to move from this point to a point where the *other* reports make sense. What specifically will help me understand these other reports?

5) Thank you for pointing out the default Budget option under File Properties. ***Could a developer please explain why there are GnuCash preferences filed in two different locations?*** I don’t understand how this could make sense.

6) Regarding saving custom reports, my point in this is to document the existing reports included with GnuCash; I am not interested in how to save a custom report. But thank you anyway.

David


> On Sep 26, 2015, at 7:26 PM, Wm... <tcnw81 at tarrcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Fri, 28 Aug 2015 12:49:06 <C9D78E9E-29B7-447A-98AE-44DC30B5F671 at yahoo.com>
> David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote...
> 
>> Hi,
> 
> In the course of trying to address shortfalls in documentation around reports, I began poking around in the various Budget reports and features, and I wanted some explanation on a number of points. Bear with me if I ask questions that are meaningless; I do not use the Budget features much, and probably don’t understand the original intent of the various reports. Add in the fact that I Am Not An Accountant, and you will further understand my questions.
> 
> By all means, if you know better what a report is meant to do, and can clue me in, it will help me write up accurate descriptions of the reports.
> 
> This exercise was done a few years ago. But I agree some of the Budgeting remains opaque and needs another visit.
> 
> Before we get going which bit of Documentation are you looking at changing? The Tutorial & Concepts, Help, both, something else?
> 
> Generally, what is each report meant to do? The grouping includes:
> 
> I'm sure many cultures have a similar tales but one is: "when asking an old man directions to point B he may suggest you return to point A"
> 
> I suggest understanding the reports without understanding how the Budgets themselves work will be time ill spent.
> 
> 
> Budget Balance Sheet
> Budget Barchart
> Budget Flow
> Budget Income Statement
> Budget Profit & Loss
> Budget Report
> 
> 
> Fortunately in order to understand the Budgets you can get by with one report: Budget Report (the one at the bottom of the list).
> 
> 
> I understand (somewhat) what these reports mean in a common sense, but what exactly are they meant to do in the context of a Budget? For example, a Balance Sheet provides a summary of all your accounts as of a certain date. But what does a Budget Balance Sheet report? The numbers I get match neither the budget numbers *nor* the actual numbers.
> 
> Ah, you see, it depends on how you have set your Budget up
> 
> More generally, I believe that the data presented in the reports is derived from the budget, with the exception of of the Budget Report, which includes both Budget and Actual amounts. Is this right?
> 
> The Budget Report is key to understanding.
> 
> I have similar questions regarding the other reports in this grouping.
> 
> Which Budget?
> Each of the reports under the Budget grouping automatically loads with a particular budget as its base. If a data file has more than one budget, however, it appears that the report automatically opens using the first listed budget. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for these reports to open using the last accessed budget? Furthermore, there does not appear to be any way to sort the list of budgets; they are always stored newest to oldest. So whatever budget you created last, that’s the default budget for every report.
> 
> File / Properties / Budgeting tab controls the default budget.  More generally if you get a Budget report to do what you want or close to it, hit "Save Report Configuration As"
> 
> Which Information?
> It would seem to me that any report that is based on a budget should only display accounts for which budget information has been provided. In my tests of a few of the budget reports, however, I have found that the various reports include different account sets. The Budget Balance Sheet and Budget Flow includes all accounts (and the Omit Zero Balance option on the Balance Sheet does not always work). The Budget Barchart includes some subset of accounts that I simply can’t fathom, I just know that it isn’t the budget. The Budget Income Statement and Budget Profit & Loss Statement are the same report; both include all accounts by default. Budget Report includes all accounts, and there is no way to show only accounts from the budget.
> 
> Before I start trying to write documentation for these reports, I’d like some input from folks who have used (or written) these reports to be sure I get an accurate description.
> 
> OK, a month or so has passed and no-one else is playing.
> 
> I'm going to repeat something I said above for emphasis.  None of the Budget Reports will make sense until the reader understands gnc Budgets, to understand the reporting (very much after the event) only one report is actually needed, the Budget Report.
> 
> I practice I give other people saved reports and tell them what to change as it is a bugger to explain.  There is a lot of capability but#
> 
>  make budget <-- make sure that is what you want using
>  Budget Report
>  time passes
>  *then* and *only* then
>  start doing reports other than the Budget report
>  chances are you won't actually need the others
> 
> I know you asked about the reports but you'll be doing the community a service if you skipped the reports and described the budget function in a way more people can understand.  I'm prepared to help as there is a lot of useful stuff there but I'm not the best bottom up explainer.
> 
> Ask Q's and I'll answer may be one way to approach this.  If I have gaps then it is a smaller set for others to fill.
> 
> I do think this is worth doing, BTW.
> 
> -- 
> Wm...
> 
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