Budgets - Reports vs Data entry Gui

[Matt Graham]

Thanks for the continuing input Wm! I'm an engineer (think 'lots of
Maths-smarts' with very little 'people-smarts'), so sorry if I'm
missing what you are trying to say...

When you say:
>All of the required structures for reporting on existing transactions
*are* *already* *in* *your* *file*.

Are you trying to point me towards the fact that people can and should
run reports to get the budget/transaction information of interest?
To me, a report does a completely different thing from the budget gui
(the data entry area). A report is to get information from the raw data
to answer specific questions - e.g. What average monthly amount did I
spend on Takeaway in the last 3 months? Or perhaps, What is my takeaway
expenditure trend been in the past 6 months? (Whoa! its been increasing
exponentially! I better quit the pizza...)

The data entry gui is there for creating and maintaining planned
expenditure. So, for example, I want to see the amount I have spent in
the month to date against the amount I have budgeted in this month to
plan and edit my budget appropriately. I don't want to run reports for
this, because then I would need to be constantly flicking between a
report and the budget gui - annoying, especially since I don't have a
dual monitor set up on this computer. 

A few of the things people have been asking for on this list fall more
into 'reports' domain, than the data entry gui. At the moment I am
purposefully not distinguishing - I'm trying to figure out what people
want out of their budgets before figuring out how we should implement
it (and in some cases I suspect that implementation might simply be
teaching people how to get what they want through reports). 

Does this make sense? Or have I missed something?

When you say:

> Further, GnuCash *already* *has* *a* *duplicate* *structure* *for*
*budgets* In fact, it has multiples of, etc.

I'm not sure what you are trying to point me toward. is this trying to
say that we don't need "wrapper" accounts as has been part of the
recent discussions? or that we do need them? I think you are saying we
do need them, because we already have a duplicate structure option that
allows you to create as many duplicate budget structures as you want
(through as many different budgets as you want). Is this right?


So what I want is not for Gnucash to tell me that I should buy my Mrs a
flower for NYE. I want it to be able to inform my decision on buying
the flower by telling me at a glance how I am doing this month against
my 'romance' budget. This could be done via a report, however doing it
this way means I have to flick screens if I decide that I want to
increase my 'romance' budget right now (and usually doing that I would
decrease, say, my 'Computer Games' budget to bring me to an overall
balance, since with more romance i shouldn't need computer games...
hopefully...)

Cheers,

Matt

P.s. Also tell me if the direction I am looking is bad accounting - I
only really know the basics of accounting, not the ins and outs of
good/bad practice.