[GNC] How to generate Budget V Actual Report for Profit and Loss

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 12/28/2022 6:38 AM, David Long wrote:
> Thanks Adrien for your reply.  I have also been trying to produce a report
> showing this year's P&L compared with previous. I tried the multi column
> reports, but the descriptions repeat and the rows do not line up.
>
> Reporting Actual V Budget and prior years is pretty standard in an
> accounting system, and whilst I love GnuCash, it's an area not covered well.
>
> Should I be asking for an enhancement?
>
Best done outside of gnucash (*)

Wearing my old senior business analyst hat (that a s well as senior 
systems analyst) I will ask you a question (the client will know the 
answer and understand the issue IF asked the right question.

When you say "compare two years' P&L side by side" do you mean "compare 
this year's with last years AS LAST YEAR'S WAS DONE (the 
"published"data" or do you mean "compare this year's with a rerun last 
year's so changes in the CoA won't exist and things will line up 
properly."(but this new "last year's" will NOT necessarily match the 
original "last year's" when that last year's was the then "this year's")

OK, assume that every year you run a YE P&L report and export it. OR you 
could just have saved in gnucash). You want a "something" that could be 
told to take two of these and from them produce that side by side 
comparison report. Isn't that easier to do with two exported reports and 
your favorite editor rather than asking for an editing program to be 
written. And no big deal to add to it "and allow me to annotate an 
unusual amount" or "add fixed text and company logo to top", etc. etc. 
etc.  If a program doing the editing  you need to request an enhancement 
each time. And how to deal with the fact that in b=general will NOT 
"line up" perfectly because the CoA and have changed a bit since the 
previous year and a human decision how to handle needed for each mismatch.

Michael D Novack

(*) How I was told to do it by an experienced accountant on the board in 
spite of the fact that I was a retired professional fluent in many 
computer languages including LISP (SCHEME is a LISP dialect)