2011-01-08 GnuCash IRC logs

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08:36:04 <FireAphis> hello
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08:55:18 <FireAphis> is anyone around, by chance, for a short question?
09:00:52 <fell> FireAphis: That depends on the question.
09:01:37 <FireAphis> hehe :) it still surprises someone's here
09:01:47 <FireAphis> unless you are a bot...
09:02:55 <FireAphis> I have a question where can a find the description of the relationships between the tables in gnucash DB
09:03:09 <FireAphis> something like an ERD
09:03:54 <FireAphis> since now I have a real database, I would like to run my own queries, but I'm not sure I get the relationships right
09:04:10 <fell> http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/SQL
09:05:33 <fell> but for write access you should alway use the gnucash API.
09:06:39 <FireAphis> just reading. wow, that's exactly what I need. very effective!
09:06:42 <FireAphis> thanks
09:07:05 <fell> You are welcome.
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11:30:41 <JonathanEllis1> What would be the generally accepted way to track a non-cash expense such as mileage allowances? I need a balancing account for my business mileage expenses. Which top-level account would it make sense for this to go under? Thanks for your consideration
11:31:06 <JonathanEllis1> At the moment I have it in Equity but I am not sure if thats what that is for
11:32:15 <JonathanEllis1> Oh, I should explain that the UK tax office allow a per mile allowance
11:33:24 <mishehu> there's no right or wrong way to to this basically
11:33:27 <mishehu> it's whatever works for you
11:33:32 *** warlord-afk is now known as warlord
11:33:46 <mishehu> I personally caculate the monetary equivalence - the IRS allows a certain value per mile
11:33:48 <warlord> JonathanEllis1: are you expecting to get reminbursed for you? Or are you plannig to deduct it?
11:34:01 <mishehu> and I post that to an expense account when I reimburse
11:34:13 <mishehu> but that only works for reimbursement
11:34:39 <warlord> If you're reimbursing I'd post it to an Asset. If you're deducting I'd post to Expense
11:35:06 <warlord> On the other hand, I'm not sure what the balancing split should be
11:35:12 <mishehu> clarification: I have a corporation
11:35:24 <mishehu> so my personal accounts are not at all connected to my business acounts
11:35:26 <warlord> anyways, gotta run
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11:35:38 <mishehu> that's why I post the reimbursement to an expense account and not an asset
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11:45:55 <JonathanEllis1> I run a sole trader business not a corporation so my personal accounts and business accounts are connected. I claim a deduction against profit rather than getting reimbursed. So I post the mileage allowance into an expense account. My question is where the balancing account should go as its a non-cash transaction
11:46:26 <JonathanEllis1> That is, money hasnt actually been spent. Is this what Equity is for?
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11:52:20 <warlord> JonathanEllis1: probably, yes.
11:56:24 <JonathanEllis1> warlord: So equity is for transactions that are a bit nebulous. Thanks
11:56:36 <warlord> Well, sorta.
11:56:47 <warlord> You might want to ask your accountant.
11:56:51 <JonathanEllis1> like the increase in value of a house when prices go up. Its kind of non-cash but still real
11:57:13 <warlord> True, although I dont think that's a valid example.
11:57:14 <JonathanEllis1> Yeah. I cant afford an accountant so I have to do it all myself
11:57:24 <warlord> You don't usually record the change-in-value of fixed assets.
11:57:55 <JonathanEllis1> If you sell an asset at a profit or loss you would have to record it wouldnt you
11:57:58 <warlord> the reason is that when you sell it you need to know the original cost basis.
11:58:03 <warlord> Yes.
11:58:08 <JonathanEllis1> I guess thats where the term negative equity comes from
11:58:10 <warlord> That's a realized gain (or loss)
11:58:19 <warlord> .. and THAT gets recorded
11:59:04 <JonathanEllis1> and mileage is a realized expense at the point where I deduct it from profit so I guess it makes sense for it to sit in equity, yes?
12:00:40 <warlord> maybe. I need to thnk on that, but I need to run..
12:00:44 <warlord> good luck
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12:00:46 <JonathanEllis1> Thanks
12:06:32 <fell> JohnathanEllis1: I would do it in the following way:
12:06:58 <fell> create expense subaccounts real and calculatory
12:08:02 <fell> below real you will have gas, repairs, deprecation of car, railway, bus and airplane tickets.
12:08:42 <fell> below calculatory mileage business, private and counter account.
12:09:27 <fell> so the sum of calculatory would always be zero.
12:19:18 <JonathanEllis1> fell: Thats an interesting way of doing it
12:23:21 <JonathanEllis1> although I dont think that will work for me. I have setup my chart of accounts based on the structure of the tax return. Under allowable business expenses there is an account called car, van and travel expenses. So my calculated mileage, rail tickets etc get charged here
12:24:34 <JonathanEllis1> Depreciation isnt such a problem as that is handled by charging from assets to expenses|capital allowances
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12:27:35 <fell> Hm, another distinction in th tree should be tax deductable or not.
12:28:38 <fell> So if I understand you right, business mileage is deductable, but gas not.
12:29:56 <fell> So you should move the branches around.
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12:47:58 <queso> How does gnucash handle compatibility with files saved by older versions of gnucash?
12:57:47 <queso> Nevermind, found it in the FAQ. :)
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13:13:55 <JonathanEllis1> fell: I have the choice of charging actual expenses like gas, insurance, repairs etc. or I can just charge a mileage allowance which is easier so I record gas and so forth under expenses|non allowable expenses and mileage under expenses|business expenses|car van and travel expenses
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13:31:58 <fell> JohnathanEllis1: If you now move calculatury:mileage:private and counter account under non allowable expenses, it should be balanced again.
13:32:43 <fell> and reflects the reimbursement by tax.
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13:51:33 <JonathanEllis1> fell: I think you misunderstand me. I charge mileage, rail tickets, hotels etc to expenses|business expenses|travel-expenses and it has to stay there as mileage is allowable. The balancing account for mileage at the moment is equity|mileage-allowance. If I had the balancing account for mileage also under business expenses then the totals would not include my mileage allowance so I dont think that is the answer
13:52:33 <JonathanEllis1> I dont get a reimbursement for mileage. Thats why I charge it as a tax allowable expense.
13:56:07 <kimmo> Jonathan, I used to run a sole proprietorship in finland which is similarly connected to my personal finances; The way I did it, I simply created an income.tax exempt.mileage and an expenses.mileage where I recorded the monthly mileage allowance so that the books balanced out
13:57:11 <kimmo> (in the end, that confusing semi-connected accounting was a major contributing factor to my deciding to switch to a single limited liability corporation [That, and several obvious tax advantages])
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14:24:21 <queso> I removed ~/.gnucash/ and ~/.gconf/apps/gnucash/ . . what else is there for personal configuration?
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15:33:01 <natanoj> how do i choose the period for the "Accounts" tab?
15:33:28 <natanoj> i.e. for the column "Balance (period)". seems to be current month now
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16:36:56 <zehrique> Hello! I'm trying to install the latest stable version on Ubuntu 10.04, but at the end I get this message: '/bin/sed: can't read /usr/lib/libltdl.la: No such file or directory'. What's going wrong?
16:37:28 <zehrique> Aptitude says that libtool is istalled
16:50:13 <Silly> sed can't read /usr/lib/libltdl.la :P
16:50:28 <zehrique> :D
16:50:35 <Silly> I have no idea
16:50:49 <zehrique> i found libltdl.la in /usr/lib/backup-la-files/
16:51:09 <zehrique> made a symbolic link, let's see if it work
16:51:39 <zehrique> no, it doesn't work ¬¬
16:52:24 <Silly> do you have all the required packages installed?
16:52:35 <zehrique> yes, i do
16:52:45 * Silly has had successful ./configure without some of the right packages.. and then make failed...
16:53:09 <zehrique> hmm
16:53:32 <Silly> not on gnucash, I've not tried tocompile it from source myself
16:53:54 <Silly> usually just use whatever packages is available for the OS I'm running (DL windows binary, or use the distro package manager)
16:53:55 <zehrique> thats what I'm doing
16:54:03 <Silly> yea
16:55:42 * Silly uses gnucash on windows primarily so the latest stable is downloaded already compiled... >.> I need to upgrade actually...
16:56:14 * zehrique uses only GNU/Linux
17:05:12 <fell> zehrique: http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Building#Ubuntu_10.04_LTS_.28Lucid_Lynx.29 doesn't help?
17:06:28 <zehrique> fell, I'm using this section as a guide, but it seems that ubuntu had backed up these .la libs.
17:06:56 <zehrique> i'm creating hard links for each .la file required in /usr/lib
17:11:23 <fell> And in which step do you get the error message?
17:12:15 <zehrique> I was getting the error when the make needed the .la files
17:12:30 <zehrique> /bin/sed: can't read /usr/lib/libltdl.la: No such file or directory
17:13:04 <zehrique> I solve them with hard links to /usr/lib/backup-la-files
17:14:34 <zehrique> fell, now i got this error message: /usr/bin/install: cannot stat `.libs/libgnc-core-utils.lai': No such file or directory
17:16:29 *** warlord-afk is now known as warlord
17:16:32 <fell> I fear, you somehow screw up one or more path variables.
17:16:40 <warlord> natanoj: Edit -> Preferences
17:16:55 <zehrique> well, in fact I havent set any variable
17:17:20 <warlord> zehrique: how did you install the build gnucash dependencies?
17:17:53 <zehrique> warlord, according to the wiki page
17:18:22 <warlord> zehrique: which wiki page? what command(s) did you run?
17:19:03 <zehrique> warlord, this wiki section http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Building#Ubuntu_10.04_LTS_.28Lucid_Lynx.29
17:19:22 <zehrique> and just run sudo aptitude build-dep gnucash at the command line
17:22:27 <warlord> And after that you started with a clean GnUCash source tree?
17:23:08 <zehrique> no, I proceed with the installation
17:23:39 <natanoj> warlord: i have no dates there, only check boxes
17:24:02 <zehrique> should I type make clean and start it again, now with the correct variables set up?
17:24:20 <warlord> natanoj: Edit -> Preferences -> [Accounting Period]
17:24:27 <warlord> What verion of GNuCash are you using?
17:24:49 <warlord> zehrique: You should rm -rf your source tree and start over again from ./configure
17:25:15 <zehrique> hmm.... OK. Can you help, me this time?
17:25:55 <warlord> zehrique: I'm not sure what help you need. Pull in the deps, run configure, make, sudo make install. (I recommend ./configure --prefix=/opt/gnucash)
17:26:42 <zehrique> warlord, hmm... OK! I'll try to do this
17:26:48 <zehrique> :)
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17:41:16 <natanoj> warlord: sorry, connected your answer wrongly... you're absolutely right of course :) thanks
17:44:18 <zehrique> warlord, now the compilation went ok. I was trying to do it on my home directory.
17:46:32 <warlord> zehrique: you can choose whatever --prefix you want; just don't use the default.
17:47:01 <zehrique> warlord, ah, OK! Thanks a lot.
17:47:16 <zehrique> and warlord, are you a member of the dev team?
17:47:33 <warlord> heh. you could say that.
17:47:40 <zehrique> :D
17:48:07 <zehrique> warlord, I'd like to help on the gnucash's website translation
17:49:18 <warlord> zehrique: Sure! Take a look at wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Translation but use the htdocs module instead of the gnucash module.
17:50:52 <zehrique> warlord, ok! But what's happening with the integration of translation of the UI in GNOME's DL? It appears that some files are missing and we cant get the .po file. Could you take a look?
17:51:10 <warlord> What do you mean, zehrique?
17:51:29 <zehrique> the translation of gnucash on Damned Lies
17:51:43 <zehrique> I'm a GNOME Foundation Member and revisor for GNOME Brazilian Portuguese Team
17:52:19 <zehrique> s/revisor/reviewer
17:52:30 <warlord> I'm not sure what Damned Lies is; I know that some languages use the Translation Project, and others send translations to us directly.
17:55:41 <zehrique> Damned Lies is the main collaboration tool that all translations teams in GNOME uses for translating GNOME's softwares (just see http://l10n.gnome.org )
17:56:31 <warlord> IIRC, there were some political issues with getting gnucash into there. Maybe something where they wanted to build the .pot file themselves but weren't willing or able to use our tools, or something. I don't recall.
17:56:52 <warlord> cstim is the guy who's mostly in charge of our translations.
17:57:37 <zehrique> well, if (all) of you are OK, I can help with this issue.
17:58:08 <zehrique> You could center the translation in GNOME's DAMNED LIES.
17:58:13 <zehrique> :)
17:58:23 <warlord> "center"?
17:58:47 <zehrique> yes, instead of using TP
17:59:02 * warlord shrugs. Not my decision.
17:59:18 <zehrique> The GNOME infrastructure is very good in dealing with translations. :)
17:59:58 <warlord> Maybe.. How do your tools get the .pot file?
18:00:47 <zehrique> well, I have to talk with DL's maintainers and give you a return. What do you think.
18:01:27 <warlord> Like I said, it's not my decision at all. I think we've been pretty happy with the status quo. You'll have to talk to cstim.
18:02:10 <zehrique> I think our (GNOME) tools are able to pick the .pot file and sincronize it the with the .po files directly on your repository.
18:02:15 <zehrique> Good!
18:02:35 <warlord> Well, how does it 'pick the pot file'? The pot file is not stored in our SVN repo.
18:03:52 <zehrique> warlord, I dont have this information with precision, but we use a lot of tools from gettext
18:04:09 <warlord> Gnucash is pretty special in how it builds the pot file.
18:04:19 <warlord> We have some of our own tools
18:04:30 <warlord> (in particular to pull the translations out of the scheme code)
18:04:40 <zehrique> hmm... I understand
18:04:59 <warlord> But like I said, the person you'd have to talk with is cstim.
18:05:22 <zehrique> some of your translatable files cant be handled by the gettext tools, am I right?
18:05:41 <zehrique> OK, no problem. I will talk with cstim.
18:05:41 <warlord> I believe that is the case, yes.
18:06:33 <zehrique> Now i understand why gnucash has no translation status on Damned Lies :)
18:07:18 <warlord> ok
18:08:34 <zehrique> warlord, once more. thanks a lot with your help. I'll set up my accounts for 2011 in Gnucash and work with it :)
18:08:53 <zehrique> and pick the pt_BR.po file to translate too. ;)
18:09:01 <warlord> okay.
18:09:11 <warlord> You might want to see who the current translator is and work with them
18:09:59 <warlord> Looks like marozsas
18:10:10 <warlord> through ldp-br team
18:12:06 <zehrique> OK, warlord.
18:16:50 <fell> According http://l10n.gnome.org/module/gnucash/ they seem to use a git repo. It seems out of sync, so xgettext fails.
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18:23:46 <zehrique> fell, for which version?
18:24:18 <zehrique> for 2.2 we are using this path http://svn.gnucash.org/trac/browser/gnucash/branches/2.2
18:25:29 <zehrique> fell, i think now the problem is only create a new branch (2.4) and DL will work OK.
18:27:44 <warlord> why are you using trac/browser instead of just pulling from svn directly?
18:29:46 <fell> and using tags instead of branches would give you more recent versions.
18:30:46 <warlord> well, branches/2.2 was the right thing for the 2.2 branch work, but that's old at this point;.
18:30:55 <warlord> once we have branches/2.4 that will be correct.
18:31:02 <zehrique> yes
18:31:08 <zehrique> thats the point
18:31:57 <zehrique> i'll see how to put DL in sinc with you
18:32:24 <warlord> Well, right now it would be trunk. However we will be branching 2.4 relatively soon (probably in a couple months)
18:33:03 <zehrique> so, the current version should be? 2.3, OK?
18:33:07 <warlord> 2.4
18:33:16 <warlord> 2.4.0 was released a week or two ago.
18:33:29 <zehrique> 2.4, OK
18:34:49 <fell> http://svn.gnucash.org/trac/browser/gnucash/tags/2.4.0 shows you the state of the last release.
18:35:07 <zehrique> hmm... lets see
18:35:50 <fell> but after that the string freeze was lifted and all the pending new strings appeared in trunk.
18:38:04 <fell> eventually one of you should subscribe to gnucash-anouncement and watch there the string freeze state.
18:38:51 <warlord> or -devel
18:48:20 <zehrique> sure
19:01:25 <fell> warlord: in http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/ I see a fresh help-de_DE.pdf, but some other pdfs are older. Is there still a failure or are they only built after changes?
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19:11:22 <warlord> fell: Good question.
19:11:38 <warlord> I didn't see any error last night, but it's possible that no changes implies no new results.
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19:15:48 <indigo> is there a way I can test a SX i made for a loan, other than waiting a month?
19:15:59 <indigo> specifically to see if the formulas are correct
19:16:17 <felle> So I will assume the pdf error is fixed.
19:18:17 <warlord> fell: I believe so.
19:18:21 <warlord> indigo: I dont think so.
19:18:31 <indigo> meh.
19:18:51 <indigo> is there a way to reset the last occured date of a SX so i can have it created again?
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19:19:25 <indigo> or is there a way to duplicate a SX before i create it
19:25:06 <fell> indigo: you should try to set create sx 30 days in advance, close gnucash and restart it.
19:25:30 <warlord> fell: no need to close/restart. Just Actions -> [SX] -> Since Last Run
19:26:07 <fell> OK
19:26:20 <indigo> yeah, i guess if i don't save, i can try again after a restart
19:26:35 <indigo> problem is i was testing, and i saved, and now
19:26:41 <indigo> i don't get another chance until march.
19:27:04 <fell> copy your backup file?
19:28:29 <warlord> Yeah, go rename and play with your backup file
19:58:03 <fell> zehrique: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=638962
19:58:23 <zehrique> lets see
19:58:43 <fell> just to avoid double work.
19:59:10 <fell> but if you like, you could add an review.
19:59:12 <zehrique> OK! Thanks fell!
20:01:00 <zehrique> What about translating and attaching the file to this BR?
20:01:34 <fell> BR?
20:03:35 <warlord> Bugzilla Report?
20:05:39 <zehrique> yes!
20:08:17 <fell> this file is a patch for pt_BR.po.
20:09:07 <fell> you can read the changes or apply it on a fresh checkout to see it in the program.
20:10:00 <fell> and then you could comment looks fine or found a typo.
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20:25:55 <zehrique> Ah! OK, fell. I will apply it and test gnucash with it
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20:26:58 <fell> obey the instructions in the translation wiki page.
20:27:14 <littleConfused> looking for step-by-step instructions to get Mac OS version of GnuCash compiled with Postgres support
20:28:11 <fell> what is wrong with the dmg package at sourceforge?
20:28:29 <warlord> littleConfused: are you sure the DMG doesn't have it?
20:29:39 <fell> http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Building#Mac_OS_X
20:31:04 <warlord> littleConfused: please keep contact in the channel. It's rude to PM without asking first.
20:31:40 <warlord> littleConfused: I dont know if it uses its own libdbi or gets it from apple.
20:31:55 <littleConfused> I'm not familiar with this client, I though that my name in green meant I was getting it PM. sorry about that, been an age since I used IRC
20:32:02 <warlord> but it sounds like its missing the postgres DBD
20:32:30 <warlord> Nope, it just means I used "littleConfused" in the textr.
20:33:38 <littleConfused> gotcha. I've tried compiling from source, but I've done zero development on Mac OS and it's been several years since I've attempted to compile anything from source at all.
20:34:40 <warlord> No need to recompile Gnucash.
20:34:47 <warlord> All you need to build are the DBDs
20:35:04 <warlord> Once the postgres DBD is put in place gnucash will happily read it at runtime
20:35:45 <warlord> littleConfused: http://libdbi-drivers.sourceforge.net/
20:40:10 <littleConfused> I will try it out and see what happens. Thanks for the tips.
20:40:41 <warlord> you can also talk to jralls about it.
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23:14:30 <fell> linas_: Now I know, why the downloads are not your problem: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=638685
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23:19:30 <mechgt> hi all. Can anyone possibly answer a qif import question for a new user?
23:24:26 <mechgt> I export my MoneyDance file to QIF and when I try to import it GnuCash gets most of the way through and fails during 'Parsing Transactions' saying only "Transaction amount: Unrecognized or inconsisten format.' How on earth do I troubleshoot this?
23:26:47 <fell> I can point you only to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicken_Interchange_Format for the format specs.
23:27:31 <mechgt> Are there any logs or other info that might point me to a line number or something like that?
23:28:05 <fell> Öhm, are you using some non english number format?
23:28:27 <mechgt> US, US dollars for everything
23:28:46 <mechgt> (decimal separator)
23:28:46 <fell> Which OS/Distro?
23:29:09 <mechgt> Tried on Ubuntu Lucid and WinXP
23:29:29 <mechgt> Exported from Moneydance on both distros as well just to check
23:29:51 <mechgt> (if you call WinXP a distro :) )
23:30:02 <fell> on linux /tmp/gnucash.trace is the log
23:30:23 <fell> you can adjust te
23:31:11 <fell> the level by using gnucash --debug or --extra or --log=... (see --help)
23:31:49 <mechgt> options if I were to start GnuCash via terminal...? gotcha. will check that out.
23:31:58 <fell> but I am not shure, about the importers log
23:38:47 <mechgt> my trace log was completely empty unless I start with --debug, and appears to give no info on the import data. It logs some data (looks like it's loading various currencies maybe?) but nothing regarding the import or offending transaction. I'll keep playing with it... thanks.
23:45:46 <fell> mechgt: you could filter your files for lines beginning with T
23:47:08 <mechgt> That's a good idea... I was trying to keep cutting my qif in half until I found the bad transaction.