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GnuCash 5.9

gnucash.org

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Re: GnuCash 5.9

#11

Post by somat »

mszcz wrote: post #3

I tried it years ago but finally settled on HLedger. Like GnuCash, I own and control my data, but with HLedger I have an ability to go in and correct or change something (and not in a "accounting-appropriate" way) in bulk just by editing it in Sublime Text. Then again, my use case is pretty basic and not mission critical so YMMV.

It's xml right.

Whenever I have to edit an xml file I tend to just go ham with python's xml library. the scripts are never pretty, mainly because they are whatever addhoc editing I wanted in written form. The hardest part is figuring out the xpath syntax.

A slight lie, I use lxml, mainly because it can select siblings which the built in xml lib is unable to do. but I still use the internal libs documentation, mainly because it is easier to read.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#12

Post by jrootabega »

samus wrote: post #10
jcarrano wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using GnuCash and not being able to easily do bulk changes or easily script it is quite annoying, for example after a slight mistake in a CSV import.

GnuCash has a scripting engine. If you have to do a specific correction very often, it might be worth it to implement something. If possible, the CSV should be preprocessed of course. If nothing else works, a Gnucash file is XML. A bit annoying to work with, but quite possible.

Can you share a link to the docs for the scripting engine? I've seen conflicting information over the years and I'm not sure what the latest really is.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#13

Post by mszcz »

somat wrote: post #11
mszcz wrote: post #3

I tried it years ago but finally settled on HLedger. Like GnuCash, I own and control my data, but with HLedger I have an ability to go in and correct or change something (and not in a "accounting-appropriate" way) in bulk just by editing it in Sublime Text. Then again, my use case is pretty basic and not mission critical so YMMV.

It's xml right. Whenever I have to edit an xml file I tend to just go ham with python's xml library. the scripts are never pretty, mainly because they are whatever addhoc editing I wanted in written form. The hardest part is figuring out the xpath syntax. A slight lie, I use lxml, mainly because it can select siblings which the built in xml lib is unable to do. but I still use the internal libs documentation, mainly…

Yeah, I've never found XML to be easy to edit/bulk edit/edit by hand. I suppose there are tools that would allow me to do that but since I would use them sporadically, I'd need to re-learn them every use. At the same ^D/^KD in Sublime works just fine.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#14

Post by GlibMonkeyDeath »

I looked carefully at GnuCash before settling on Beancount (or plain-text accounting in general) for personal finance software.

The deal breaker for me was the underlying XML or SQLite formats of GnuCash. These are not terribly amenable to scripting, either for ingesting raw data or reporting. Whereas this is basically the point of plain-text tools like Beancount or HLedger. GnuCash feels too much like a walled-garden compared to plain-text tools.

The plain-text format requires more work at first, but after you get the hang of it (and provided you have some background in scripting software) it is awesome.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#15

Post by lhamil64 »

mszcz wrote: post #3

I tried it years ago but finally settled on HLedger. Like GnuCash, I own and control my data, but with HLedger I have an ability to go in and correct or change something (and not in a "accounting-appropriate" way) in bulk just by editing it in Sublime Text. Then again, my use case is pretty basic and not mission critical so YMMV.

I use Firefly III (https://firefly-iii.org). It's a self-hosted web app which is nice for me because I tend to use it from my phone most of the time. It does have a pretty extensive API, perhaps not as easy to do bulk edits as a text file, but should be fairly straightforward. It also has a rule system that could be used to do bulk edits too.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#16

Post by trollied »

bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #2

GnuCash is solid. One thing that I love: I have full control over my data, and its stored as a simple xml (also supports SQLite, but why use more complex when simpler works just as well?) I have a few (comparatively minor) complaints about GnuCash, but they're around UI. Things like: it would be nice to assign all matching (eg Regen) transactions to a selected account, and stuff like that. But overall, having somethi…

[flagged]

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#17

Post by garupoliq »

I tried to get into it several times but eventually came to the conclusion that it is, despite the unassuming name and the advertisement as a tool for personal finances probably more targeted at professional accountants or people who have some training in accounting, rather than just being a tool for tracking private finances in an intuitive way.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#18

Post by blacklion »

I've tried many personal accounting software and all of them (but old Pcoket Money for PalmOS!) are very unhelpful in filling in expenses.

If you need to record whole shop visit as one transaction (like "Food at Lidl") it is tolerable, but as soon as you want to enter each line in your receipt as separate part of split transaction (like, food:milk = 2 euro, food:bread = 1 euro, food:eggs = 3 euro, food:meat:pork = 8 euro, etc) you need to type everything again and again without good suggestions, based on your previous history. Such suggestions could be very sophisticated, taking counterpart and other parameters and suggest "food:bread" and price by letters "br" if counterpart is "Lidl" or "clothing:bra" and other price if counterpart is "Victoria Secret", for example, but, alas, nothing I've tried, support this.

Really, old (PalmOS 3.0!) Pocket Money was a breeze, and everything else, Desktop or Mobile, is much, much worse in this aspect.

Also, I think, that when you have all you transactions vrty detailed, it is better to have nested "categories" and not nested "accounts". It is almost cosmetic difference, but it is strange for me to have "cache" and "food:meat:pork" as same type of objects. I don't transfer money to "food:meat:pork", I spend money for it. I transfer money to the shop, not to the product! As far as I know, professional accounting systems doesn't have account for each asset of the firm, like different accounts for monitors, laptops, computers and (computer) mices.

Maybe, I don't find it yet? Any suggestions?

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#19

Post by ranger_danger »

gavinhoward wrote: post #5
mszcz wrote: post #3

I tried it years ago but finally settled on HLedger. Like GnuCash, I own and control my data, but with HLedger I have an ability to go in and correct or change something (and not in a "accounting-appropriate" way) in bulk just by editing it in Sublime Text. Then again, my use case is pretty basic and not mission critical so YMMV.

This is absolutely a valid reason to not use GnuCash. As for myself, I agree that the XML format is not great, but I use the SQLite format, which allows me to write scripts on it.

You can write scripts to transform XML documents as well.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#20

Post by dmwilcox »

Ran a business with it, payroll, administered the 401k accounts, etc. Solid. Expense tracking good enough for a business with limited expenses, or background as a bookkeeper (my teenage job). But being able to generate balance sheet and profit&loss reports for my accountant, golden.
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