A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to implement for budgets

Steven Miller Smille89_K at hotmail.com
Mon Jan 16 20:26:06 EST 2017


Sorry to keep spamming the list, but I think I almost got it.  I figured out that it is reading the config.user  under .gnucash directory.  The config.user  has the following line:

(load "/home/guardian/.gnucash/reports/ytd-budget.scm")

note:  guardian is the user name.


I know it is reading the config file because initially I was starting up gnucash through the gui icon on the desktop.  I decided to launch it via command line and if I put an incorrect file name in the load (for example:  (load "/home/guardian/.gnucash/reports/yyyytd-budget.scm")  it tells me that it can't find the file yyyytd-budget.scm.).  When I point it to an existing file then it doesn't give any issues.


Now here is the problem...  It doesn't pull up in the menus in gnuCash so I can't even select it.  I am wondering if there is a bug in the code (for the ytd-budget.scm) in how the report is supposed to show up in the menus.  Any ideas anybody?


Thanks,

Steven

________________________________
From: Steven Miller
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 6:55 PM
To: Abhijit Kshirsagar; David
Cc: Phil Longstaff; Gnucash user list
Subject: Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to implement for budgets


Lastly, could do a pwd and list the full path of where your config files are located?  Like others that have posted here then we have tried everything suggested, looked at documentation, forumns, etc.. and it is still not working.


________________________________
From: Abhijit Kshirsagar <abhijit86k at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 10:33 AM
To: David
Cc: Steven Miller; Phil Longstaff; Gnucash user list
Subject: Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to implement for budgets

Debian user here.
Was able to download and view the YTD report without any problems.
I don't have a proper budget yet - will setone up and report back.
Abhijit

P.s: Is there a public repo of gnucash reports anywhere?
~Abhijit



On 15 January 2017 at 21:16, David via gnucash-user
<gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> Steven,
>
> I confirm everything you offer here. I have tried exactly the same steps, with exactly the same problems.
>
> It sure would be nice if the custom reports implementation and documentation were simple and accurate.
>
> David
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________
> From: Steven Miller <Smille89_K at hotmail.com>
> Sent: Mon Jan 16 04:50:58 GMT+05:00 2017
> To: Phil Longstaff <phil.longstaff at gmail.com>, Gnucash user list <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to implement for budgets
>
>
> Phil,
>
>
> Bare with me on this...
>
> I went to my home directory. I cd into .gnucash. There was no config.user file so I just created one under the .gnucash directory. I also created the reports directory under .gnucash and dropped ytd-budget.scm into the reports directory ... In the config.user file I put:
>
>
> (load "/home/guardian/.gnucash/reports/ytd-budget.scm")
>
>
> When I launch gnucash then it doesn't pull up in the reporting menu [☹] .
>
>
> A couple of other things I tried:
>
> In the config.user file I tried
>
> (load (gnc-build-dotgnucash-path "ytd-budget.scm"))
>
> Then I put ytd-budget.scm directly under .gnucash (so that it was in the relative directory)
>
> It still didn't Show up in the reporting menus when I restarted GnuCash. My guess is it is some how not reading the config.user file under .gnucash directory in my home directory for some reason, but I could be wrong.
>
>
> Next I tried dropping it directly in the standard reports directory under /user/share/gnucash/scm/gnucash/report/standard-reports. When I tried to boot GnuCash now it won't open, it tries then dies. To see what was wrong I ran gnucash via command line with the following command:
>
> gnucash --debug --log gnc.scm=debug
>
>
> Below is the error I get when I run it this way
>
> ---------------------------
>
> The error I get before it crashes is In known file:
>
> ?: 2 [primitive-load-path "gnucash/report/standard-reports/budget-ytd" ...]
>
> In gnucash/report/standad-reports/budget-ytd.scm:
>
> 46: 1 [#<procdure 55f543479560 ()>]
>
> In unknown file:
>
> ?: 0 [#<syntax-transformer N_> "YTD Budget Report"]
>
>
> ERROR: In procedure #<syntax-transformer N_>:
>
> ERROR: Wrong type to apply: #<syntax-transformer N_>
>
> -----------------------------
> I next take the .scm file out of the standard-reports directory and GnuCash launches fine, but no ytd-budget [☹] . Do you know what is wrong? I am sure it is something simple, but I don't know what it could be.
>
> -Steven
>
> _____________________________________________
>
> From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+smille89_k=hotmail.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of Phil Longstaff <phil.longstaff at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2017 5:08 PM
> To: Gnucash user list
> Subject: Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to implement for budgets
>
> When you reply, please reply to the whole list.
>
> On ubuntu, you should be able to put the file into .gnucash/reports and
> modify .gnucash/config.user
>
> On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 5:07 PM, Steven Miller <Smille89_K at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you very much! Hopefully it is what I am looking for. I'll try it
>> out.
>>
>> I use GNU cash for Linux (ubuntu)... Will it still work?
>>
>> I've never loaded a custom report before.
>>
>>
>> -Steven
>>
>>
>>_____________________________________________
>
>> *From:* gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+smille89_k=hotmail.com@
>> gnucash.org> on behalf of Phil Longstaff <phil.longstaff at gmail.com>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, January 15, 2017 10:19 AM
>> *To:* gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> *Subject:* Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to
>> implement for budgets
>>
>> I do have a report that I created that might fit the bill. I've attached it
>> to this e-mail.
>>
>> Down the left hand side, you can select what accounts you want to see. For
>> columns, there are:
>> 1) current month
>> 2) YTD
>> 3) full year
>>
>> For each of these, there can be either just budget and actual, or variance
>> can also be displayed.
>>
>> I've sent this report before. Here it is again. On windows, I put it into
>> directory c:\users\phil\.gnucash\reports (I think I had to create that
>> directory) and then add this line to c:\users\phil\.gnucash\config.user:
>>
>> (load "c:\\Users\\Phil\\.gnucash\\reports\\ytd-budget.scm")
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Steven Miller <Smille89_K at hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I am referring to YTD variances. There would be a couple of ways of
>> going
>> > about it. The easiest and first thing to do would be to have the YTD
>> > variances show up at the bottom of each month in the "budget report" for
>> > the specified period (at the bottom you would have totals for actual
>> > expenses, budgeted expenses, and the variance. These totals would
>> reflect
>> > YTD. The only values that would change dynamically would be the actual
>> and
>> > variance totals as the budget values are set in the budget itself. This
>> > would give you an overall YTD or running total of how you was doing on a
>> > month to month basis, which honestly, I don't know how anyone could
>> track a
>> > budget effectively without doing this). Having this all in one view (the
>> > budget report) would extremely useful and would increase the value of the
>> > budget report enormously.
>> >
>> >
>> > The next thing that could be done could be to extend the above feature to
>> > have YTD for each account (you could think of them as viewing the
>> accounts
>> > as categories in this context), but my original inquiry was for the
>> feature
>> > described in the first paragraph. If all that was implemented was what
>> is
>> > described in the first paragraph then I would be happy. Anything further
>> > would be bonus feature [😊] .
>> >
>> >
>> > -Steven
>> >
>> >
>> >_____________________________________________
>
>> > From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+smille89_k=hotmail.com@
>> > gnucash.org> on behalf of Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com
>> >
>> > Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2017 5:31 AM
>> > To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> > Subject: Re: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to
>> > implement for budgets
>> >
>> > Are you asking for just the variance for that month, or a separate
>> > year-to-date variance column?
>> >
>> > From what I see, the individual monthly variances are already there. And
>> > yes, a YTD variance would be VERY helpful.
>> >
>> >
>> > > On Jan 14, 2017, at 6:27 PM, gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org wrote:
>> > >
>> > > From: Steven Miller <Smille89_K at hotmail.com <mailto:
>> > Smille89_K at hotmail.com>>
>> > > Subject: A crucial GNUCash feature that is missing, but easy to
>> > implement for budgets
>> > > Date: January 14, 2017 at 6:27:17 PM CST
>> > > To: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>>" <
>> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>>>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > All,
>> > >
>> > > I started using GnuCash recently and I love it! I got a handful of my
>> > friends hooked on it also. Despite all the features and good things
>> about
>> > it, there is one super simple feature missing that I have to have to make
>> > it effective for me.
>> > >
>> > > The feature I need is on the budget report. I really need to be able
>> to
>> > see the month totals for the difference/variance (actual - budget)
>> columns
>> > for each month. I realize this feature is available for the end of
>> > year/budget period, but it would be much more useful to have a checkbox
>> in
>> > the options that allows you to also see the totals for each month rolled
>> up
>> > in this view.
>> > > The feature seems like for someone that understood the code it would
>> > essentially take only a couple of hours to implement (honestly, I think
>> > somebody could just take a sum of the difference column, actual -
>> budgeted,
>> > and have this displayed at the bottom of each month, and thus keep a
>> > running total of where you were at. I was using excel sheets before and
>> I
>> > was able to do this with sum formulas and adding and subtracting math :).
>> > >
>> > > It is difficult to do budgeting unless you can accurately track where
>> > you are currently at. I know I could hack it and beat around the issue
>> by
>> > having my budget only display a single month, but this becomes really
>> > cumbersome when needing to also see the entire period.
>> > >
>> > > I really don't want to have to back to using excel sheets as GnuCash
>> > beats Excel in almost every area, but I do need this basic utility to
>> > effectively budget. Is there anyone that is willing to put this feature
>> in
>> > or that can tell me how to do it so that I can possibly put it in?
>> > >
>> > > Thanks,
>> > > Steven
>> >
>> >_____________________________________________
>
>> > gnucash-user mailing list
>> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> > -----
>> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>> >
>> >_____________________________________________
>
>> > gnucash-user mailing list
>> > gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> > -----
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>> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>> >
>>
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