2011-01-16 GnuCash IRC logs

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10:36:01 <goblin> hi guys, how can I add a currency?
10:36:06 <goblin> bitcoin is missing from the list
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12:08:23 <goblin> also there's no stuff like Pecunix GAU or Liberty Reserve USD
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13:02:33 <sparse> Hello, I try to us gnucash to organize bills payed two years ago and I have a problem, that I have to enter the year 2009 each time I eneter a transaction. Isn't there a way how to say: all transactions from now will be for year 2009. Is this somehow possible?
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13:04:35 <goblin> sparse, I'm very new to gnucash so there's probably a better way, but I'd just enter them for 2011 and then edit the .xml with a text editor and mass-change the dates :-]
13:06:07 <sparse> goblin, well, I used to have everything for 2011, and then change every 2011 to 2009 but then I added also accounts for 2010 a 2011 and it became quite problematic and error-prone
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13:08:42 <sparse> goblin, anyway this is quite a basic improvement for frequenttly inputted data
13:09:08 <sparse> therefore I hope there is a way in such good software
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13:25:12 <Silly> sparse: HOw are you adding transactions? The way I usually add transactions is to use the general ledger, and for me on the general ledger all new transactions start out with the same data as the transaction I last entered... though I've never done that for a years previous
13:37:39 <PeterM> OK I want to implement the same features as in quicken to be able to enter a %age in the split value so it calculates automatically, is anybody is interested in that feature ? is it easy to program ?
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13:39:20 <goblin> oh, regarding dates, the UI seems to not display/allow editing of the time of transaction at all
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14:09:02 <tazle> what should the text encoding be for QIF files?
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14:19:45 <sparse> Silly, I usually use subaccounts
14:21:28 <sparse> Silly, what you talk about is good (together with [], ()) if you have bills which change in time in one day or so, but I have bills which differ in a week or more in the date
14:24:04 <sparse> Silly, therefore I would appreciate to set a year or even a month and then set the date: eg.: I had 12/10/2009 before, now I would like to set 14/11 to give it a date 14/11/2009 or (even better) 14 to keep both month and year
14:40:15 <sparse> I just checked current behavior: If you use just one number, it will be completed by current moth and year, if you set two, you will get current year
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15:23:50 *** warlord-afk is now known as warlord
15:24:06 <warlord> goblin: You cannot add currencies. You can treat it like a Stock/Fund, or you can use 'XXX'
15:26:38 <warlord> sparse: you can use /09 instead of /2009, .. or you can use relative dates (+/- to shift by a day, etc).
15:27:46 <warlord> goblin: that is correct, there is no ToD entry.
15:29:13 <warlord> PeterM: Well, you can sorta already do that. You can type: 172.12 * .08 (and it will compute the value for you)
15:30:42 <warlord> tazle: that's a good question. There is nothing in the file to say what the encoding is, so you have to guess. It's best if the QIF is encoded in your local encoding (which in modern systems is generally utf8)
15:40:13 <goblin> warlord, thanks. I'm just fiddling around with src/engine/iso-4217-currencies.scm. Don't let the programmers become users I guess ;-)
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15:41:05 <goblin> warlord, are there any reasons for me not to add it to the source?
15:42:13 <goblin> I'm not familiar with the Stock/Fund option
15:42:28 <goblin> it seems like a better idea however :-]
15:43:08 <goblin> what type should I use though? AMEX, EUREX, FUND, NASDAQ or NYSE?
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15:54:22 <warlord> goblin: The namespace is purely there for your own edification; Type in "Personal Currency"
15:55:21 <goblin> warlord, you mean in the .scm file?
15:57:01 <warlord> no, i mean in the security editor
15:57:19 <warlord> in place of AMEX, etc. type your own thing
15:57:39 <goblin> it greys out the OK button when I do
15:58:08 <goblin> oh sorry I might have been in the wrong window
15:58:31 <goblin> yeah that works, thanks
16:02:50 <sparse> warlord, that is actually not what I need. The feature you propose is nice, but you can imagine that if you go year by year by all the bills, you can sometimes unintentionally write down the current year (since you use it very frequently). The feature (default year) could solve this easily
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16:05:51 <brushb> I just started using drop box and kind of impressed with the nautilus integration.. wondering how safe it would be to "sync" a gnucash data file
16:05:52 <warlord> sparse: Except it's an outlier case. very rarely do you enter transactions that far back in history (and if you are finding you're doing it frequently, then you're doing it wrong). It doesn't make sense to spend lots of time on a feature that pretty much never should ever be used.
16:06:09 <warlord> brushb: I have no idea how secure dropbox is.
16:06:42 <brushb> that would be a first concern
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16:08:12 <PeterM> warlord: Thanks that works !!
16:08:21 <brushb> i was wondering if you forgot and left gnucash running at home and then went to work and opened it would lock mechanism work and say woooa the file is open already, quit? or would massive data loss occur as the two computers autosaved back and forth at whatever the interval is set to..
16:10:10 <warlord> PeterM: you're welcome
16:10:17 <warlord> goblin: you're welcome, too :)
16:10:36 <warlord> brushb: with dropbox I suspect data loss might occur.
16:12:00 <brushb> ok
16:13:12 <brushb> thanks
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16:20:42 <PeterM> What I want to do next is like quicken, when I import a transaction, I want it to be splitted between 2 accounts at 50% each. It has already a mecanism to remember the last account to use so I would need to add code to remember another account and a percentage
16:21:41 <sparse> warlord, you are probably right. For me, I did it several times when I was organizing bills of other people new to the program. But yes, you are right, it would be a rarely used feature.
16:25:44 <warlord> PeterM: via QIF or OFX?
16:25:45 <tazle> warlord: Im producing the file - I'd like to know what gnucash expects, or rather what heuristics it uses
16:25:53 <warlord> In QIF you can say that a txn is a split.
16:25:55 <sparse> warlord, just for my curiosity, I noticed that gnucash has quite basic support of graph output, are there any plans to improve it? (Like have not only bar graphs ...) I must say I am more engineer than accountant so I might see it from wrong perspective.
16:26:06 <warlord> tazle: it uses the current locale.
16:27:18 <tazle> warlord: which would be LC_CTYPE on unix, presumably, but what about windows?
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16:27:45 <warlord> sparse: We have bar charts, pie charts, and scatter plots currently.
16:27:53 <warlord> I think there was one more added recently.
16:28:11 <warlord> It's mostly a question of what goffice supports, and then having someone write the reports that use the graphics. Patches always welcome.
16:28:19 <warlord> tazle: maybe? (I'm not sure)
16:28:51 <sparse> warlord, I did not notice the scatter plot type. I might have old version. Anyway, thanks for your answers.
16:29:13 <indigo> am i alone in thinking the reports are poorly factored and hard to follow?
16:29:42 <sparse> indigo, what do you mean poorly factored?
16:29:57 <PeterM> warlord, it would have to be OFX/QFX or CSV because my financial institution doesn't support QIF
16:30:16 <indigo> i mean, there is a great deal of duplicated functionality, and a great deal of common functionality that isn't publicly exposed.
16:31:21 <warlord> PeterM: OFX doesn't support split transactions. (the protocol)
16:31:27 <indigo> for example, i'm trying to write a very simple report; calculate the expenses entered over the past two weeks, and calculate a weighted average. However, a simple task, like converting everything to my chosen report currency, is very hard.
16:31:57 <indigo> several (all?) of the existing reports do that already, but each seems to implement it separately.
16:32:19 <warlord> anyways, I'm off
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16:37:55 <sparse> indigo, I think I get it. You might to write it to a developper mailing list if there is any. Then it might be more likely to be implemented.
16:40:30 <PeterM> is there a virtual machine I can download to be set up and program right away the modification I need in gnucash
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17:31:37 <Jed> asked this yesterday but had to sign off before I saw an answer; if you need to add an account to a budget after the budget was created, how do you do this?
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17:49:43 <warlord> Jed: you might try subscribing to and mailing the question to the gnucash-user mailing list. More people who can answer there.
17:50:05 <warlord> PeterM: Nope. But if you're on Linux it's pretty easy to pull in the dependencies (depending on which Distro)
17:50:33 <warlord> indigo: A patch that consolidates that functionality would be good.
17:55:36 <indigo> warlord: yeah, i've thought about it. it feels like a huge endeavor.
17:56:01 <indigo> probably for me, (cost of learning existing system) > (cost of writing new system)
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20:57:10 <linux> hello
20:57:20 <linux> !news
20:58:17 <linux> anyone here using gnucash on windows xp?
20:59:18 <tlatoani> I have accounts in two different currencies USD and Mexican Pesos, I would like to track expenses from either currencies, but I see that an account can only have transactions of its configured currency. How would you recommend I handle this, having expense accounts like Expenses:Groceries:USD and another like Expenses:Groceries:MXN, or what do you recomend to track expenses of different
20:59:18 <tlatoani> currencies into one expense? In my examples the Expense and Groceries accounts would be USD and the MXN is pesos, so everything would convert to dollars in the parent accounts.
21:01:23 <linux> tlatoani: complicated!
21:03:11 <linux> tlatoani: I'm brand new to gnucash
21:07:15 <tlatoani> linux: yes, I'm trying to figure out what would be the best way to go. I'm also new to gnucash. I'm using it in Windows Vista and have not had any problems executing it.
21:12:01 <linux> tlatoani: that's awesome to hear that works on windows. I am trying it in linux
21:12:43 <linux> tlatoani: can be a split transaction?
21:17:28 <tlatoani> linux: I hadn't tought of that, I'll think of using split transactions. Thanks.
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21:33:30 <linux> ..
22:06:14 <linux> is anyone here?
22:08:49 <indigo> see the topic
22:09:32 <indigo> "ask and wait" means "this channel is frequently filled only by idlers" :)
22:10:12 <linux> indigo: LOL idlers
22:12:42 <linux> indigo: how long you been using gnucash?
22:14:30 <indigo> three months
22:14:45 <linux> indigo: windows or linux?
22:14:47 <linux> or mac
22:14:54 <indigo> linux
22:14:59 <indigo> though also a bit on my mac
22:15:12 <linux> indigo: what distro linux you run ?
22:15:22 <indigo> ubuntu
22:16:03 <linux> indigo: what's your overall opinion of gnucash?
22:17:16 <indigo> that's a broad question
22:18:27 <linux> indigo: easy to figure out, accurate ?
22:18:49 <linux> indigo: does what it is supposed to - basically
22:19:16 <linux> I saw a post about autofil being a pain,,. I just installed so don't know...
22:19:49 <indigo> that's a pretty minor issue
22:20:29 <linux> indigo: what would the major issue be?
22:20:58 <indigo> if i had any major issues with gnucash, i wouldn't be using it
22:22:42 <linux> indigo: I'm glad to near no major issues.
22:22:42 <linux> near/hear
22:32:47 <linux> indigo: have you ever tried any of the other accounting programs?
22:35:39 <indigo> my employer uses MYOB
22:35:51 <indigo> i disqualified it for not being open source
22:36:10 <indigo> also it sucks, but that's harder to objectively define.
22:36:39 <indigo> basically i found gnucash in the intersection of open source and double entry accounting systems
22:37:02 <linux> are you a cpa?
22:37:45 <indigo> no
22:39:26 <linux> I've been looking at linux accounting software with an eye toward open source for recommendation to my windows using family members
22:39:46 <linux> Just found moneydance site - linux version is free?
22:40:46 <indigo> no idea
22:53:50 <linux> indigo: thanks for chatting with me. I think I'm gonna be happy with gnucash :)
22:54:21 <linux> have a great evening O/
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