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GnuCash

gnucash.org

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: GnuCash

#21
post #2

With two busy working (and shopping) adults, a teenager, and a little kid, online shopping, cash, cards, etc, I think I would need to hire a data entry clerk to use something like this.

Yeah, it’s a lot of work. I used to manually budget with Google Spreadsheets but eventually threw in the towel and gave into Mint. I still have to go in and manually change certain categories or add tags, but it’s way less work than what I was doing before.

I use Money for Excel. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/06/1...

I found it easier to manage personal finances in a spreadsheet.

Re: GnuCash

#23
I've used GnuCash for 13 years now, for personal finances and two companies, and love it to death. There's something really satisfying when you see everything balance!

The only issues I've had over all these years have been banks/credit cards that have weird idiosyncrasies in their file formats (lookin' at you, AmEx) that require you to remove the trailing white space (bad memory, I have a text file that reminds me what to do every time) or whatever and getting stock updates (gnc-fq-update) working again after upgrade.

It's also really accessible. While slow and a little annoying, I can do almost everything with a keyboard instead of the mouse (unlike so much online tax software, which is a carpal tunnel specialist's dream).

Re: GnuCash

#24

Obligatory HN comment about the mobile site being bad: It's almost impressive how bad it is on my phone. The content takes up 2/3 of the page horizontally to make room for the logo on the side. I get GNU and it's culture are less about mobile and more about *nixy desktops/laptops/servers, but it takes more effort to break things like this than letting the browser do it's natural thing most of the time.

The website probably predates the mobile era and no one has bothered to rewrite it since.

Re: GnuCash

#25
post #23

I've used GnuCash for 13 years now, for personal finances and two companies, and love it to death. There's something really satisfying when you see everything balance! The only issues I've had over all these years have been banks/credit cards that have weird idiosyncrasies in their file formats (lookin' at you, AmEx) that require you to remove the trailing white space (bad memory, I have a text file that reminds me w…

“tailing white space” - I wonder if a trim () on that input field would help.

Re: GnuCash

#26

Obligatory HN comment about the mobile site being bad: It's almost impressive how bad it is on my phone. The content takes up 2/3 of the page horizontally to make room for the logo on the side. I get GNU and it's culture are less about mobile and more about *nixy desktops/laptops/servers, but it takes more effort to break things like this than letting the browser do it's natural thing most of the time.

The website probably predates the mobile era and no one has bothered to rewrite it since.

Eh. It has viewport meta tags and the apple app icon markup.

But you're probably still right, I'm sure at some point they just peppered those into all their pages to fix them at least a tiny bit.

Re: GnuCash

#27
post #2

With two busy working (and shopping) adults, a teenager, and a little kid, online shopping, cash, cards, etc, I think I would need to hire a data entry clerk to use something like this.

I have my own SQLite-centered setup with a Haskell UI to glue it together. I have (relatively) simple programs that parse incoming CSVs or OFX from the banks, so there is practically no data entry. (Not disagreeing with you though, as I have no idea how well GNUCash handles importing.)

Re: GnuCash

#28
post #2

With two busy working (and shopping) adults, a teenager, and a little kid, online shopping, cash, cards, etc, I think I would need to hire a data entry clerk to use something like this.

I felt the same way trying to use ledger. Apparently there's a way to import your CC charges from online banking CSVs, but I never tried it out. I ended up giving myself a weekly allowance and plugging that into the books at the end of the week. Things got a lot easier when I was dealing with broad budget categories instead of logging transactions for a single cup of coffee.

Just because someone reading might find use of this, but if you use Bank of America you can export your transactions relatively easily.

1. Login not on mobile (and also extend your browser winder size until the mobile mode is gone. Mobile mode changes how you login, because of course it does...)

2. Click one your bank accounts.

3. Click "Download", "Custom date range", from some time ago to today*.

4. Download as Printable Text Format

This will give you a simple CSV file of all your transactions.

I'm horrible with money, but still try to export all my transactions and merge them onto one spreadsheet so I can plan out money stuff as needed.

* You can only download up to 6 months at a time, but you can go pretty far back in your banking history.

Re: GnuCash

#29
post #2

With two busy working (and shopping) adults, a teenager, and a little kid, online shopping, cash, cards, etc, I think I would need to hire a data entry clerk to use something like this.

Yeah, it’s a lot of work. I used to manually budget with Google Spreadsheets but eventually threw in the towel and gave into Mint. I still have to go in and manually change certain categories or add tags, but it’s way less work than what I was doing before.

An alternative that isn't as scummy a company as Intuit is https://www.youneedabudget.com/

Re: GnuCash

#30

I'm surprised to see a GNU project that not only hosts their code on GitHub, but also has an official Facebook community. What gives?

You probably need some pragmatism to stay relevant.

I think that's why parent was surprised it was a GNU project.
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