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GnuCash 5.9

gnucash.org

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Re: GnuCash 5.9

#81

Post by BeetleB »

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #14

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-garde…

As long as the XML/DB schema is documented (no idea if it is), it's actually better and more robust than Beancount/Ledger's plain text format. In fact, I use KMyMoney (XML backend), and have a script to convert the data to Ledger format. The script was easy to write precisely because it's not free flowing text.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#82

Post by BeetleB »

trollied wrote: post #16
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]

Far too often I've ended up with corrupt SQLite db files. At times it wasn't discovered until much later (i.e. most queries would still work). Very hard to fix (in fact, I never did fix any).

With XML, under version control, you can identify easily what went wrong.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#83

Post by bbor »

yazzku wrote: post #77
bbor wrote: post #60

I know the aesthetic is part of the “simple” appeal, but it’s just inexcusable to not have a responsive (aka “mobile friendly”) site in 2024. It’s also a great example of why I don’t trust hand-rolled guis like this, if I can avoid it: the standards are standard for a reason.

Why is it inexcusable? And what standards? This is for serious finance, not for swiping yolo stonks on Robin Hood.

Well, the applicable standard in this case would be “Web Development” writ large. Responsiveness is a start, but consistency is one of the most important design principles, and this site seems to disrespect user expectations about layout, menus, and interactable elements, from a glance.

Responsiveness in particular is “inexcusable” to miss because it’s so easy that it’s practically boilerplate these days, and the lack makes it impossible to read on mobile. Will I be convinced by this update to try GnuCash? We’ll never know, because I can’t read the changelog!

I know I’m a zoomer, but zoomers have money too! A little. Sometimes. And for what it’s worth: I’m pretty sure this is an accounting app, not a finance app ;)

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#84

Post by TZubiri »

JaggerFoo wrote: post #78

I use GnuCash for business accounting and it does what I need. I don't use QuickBooks as VC's recommend in blog posts. QB has some convenient features, but that is not enough for me to pay the price QB is asking. I don't need VC money or a CPA. I haven't tried using GnuCash with Sqlite, but I would like to experiment when I get the time. Is it reliable? I used to be a technical/functional engineer for Oracle EBS, so…

Yet another instance of free software succeding for its free as in free beer qualities

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#85

Post by TZubiri »

stouset wrote: post #24
blacklion wrote: post #18

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…

Is it actually all that useful to you to track each receipt line-item? For a few specific types of purchases, maybe, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you might be taking on needless work that doesn't create value for you anywhere near that level of effort.

The sweetspot is to group by providers. Unless you have a huge all in one provider, you'll have enough granularity.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#86

Post by xupybd »

stouset wrote: post #69
xupybd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just tracking no but allocating yes. If you plan ahead you know how much money you actually have and can plan better. I find I save way more with a proper budget in place.

A proper budget does not require you to drill down to the level of tracking specific food groups.

Not normally, no. But we track things like cleaners vs food.

I budget very high level but when my wife did her own before we were married she prefered fine grain control. I think it's more of a personality thing.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#87

Post by noisy_boy »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #38
trollied wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I agree with bdjsiqoocwk that XML is way simpler than SQLite. In the case where I'm making changes by hand, it's much easier to open an XML file in a text editor and edit it, than it is to figure out an SQL query to do the same thing. In the case where I'm making changes programmatically, libraries will handle the complexity of XML for me, but I will still have to struggle through figuring out an SQL query if I'm try…

Disclaimer: no stats

I bet if we do a random poll of the people here, more people would be comfortable writing a SQL query then doing xpath processing to query the same data.

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#88

Post by balderdash »

garupoliq wrote: post #17

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.

I don’t disagree with you, but I’d suggest that the accounting knowledge is pretty easy to pick up, and getting that under your belt will actually be incredibly valuable

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#89

Post by kjellsbells »

TZubiri wrote: post #85
stouset wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually all that useful to you to track each receipt line-item? For a few specific types of purchases, maybe, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you might be taking on needless work that doesn't create value for you anywhere near that level of effort.

The sweetspot is to group by providers. Unless you have a huge all in one provider, you'll have enough granularity.

Here are two examples:

1. Amazon shopping. You can buy anything for your life in one place, and the credit card receipt just says, Amazon. Thats too broad a bucket to really track where your money is going. I like to understand, for example, what I am spending on consumables for house upkeep, like light bulbs and air filters, separately from things like bike accessories.

2. Splitting out alcohol and other highly discretionary purchases from grocery shopping. Lets say I want to budget for alcohol spend as a way of gently trimming back my consumption. Or chocolate, candy, etc. Would be nice to be able to do this quickly. The ideal would be to simply scan the supermarket receipt and let OCR figure it out for the majority case (aka the 2 or 3 stores I shop at every week).

Re: GnuCash 5.9

#90

Post by [deleted] »

bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #47
trollied wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Suppose you don't have SQLite, how do you open a SQLite database? The only way is you have to re-implement SQLite from scratch. Good luck with that. Now imagine you don't have vim, how do you open an XML file? You can use any of other thousands of text editors out there, or any of tens of libs in tens of different languages. I think your take that sqlite is simpler than a text file is the weird one.

[deleted]
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