2011-08-31 GnuCash IRC logs

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01:52:53 <Gokee2> Is there any documentation around for how to print a check? I found http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.6/de_DE/t3757.html but I don't have "Print Check" in my Transaction menu. I am assuming I have to do something special to declare a transaction a check before that appears? Or am I missing something else?
02:32:20 <Gokee2> Ah, found it under file
02:56:17 <Gokee2> Now, there does not seem to be any way to put in negative numbers in the x/y of the check printing custom field box. If I rotate the checks it rotates everything off the page and without being able to put in negative numbers there does not seem to be a way to get the check to print at 90 degree's and have anything on the page.
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04:11:23 <Gokee2> Anyone happen to know how the x/y measurements in a .chk file relates to the real world? It seems to be about 750 units to 23 centimeters but I would like a more exact number. It would really be better if I could define in millimeters rather then whatever those units are
04:13:47 <Gokee2> 650 units to 23 centimeters*
04:15:39 <Gokee2> Ah... its in the source code as 2.8346 mm to points
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07:50:15 <warlord> JasonBox: Did this write-down happen before you started accounting? If so then it would just be a different opening balance. Otherwise, it's just like any other periodic payment from Cash -> Loan (Liability)
07:50:29 <warlord> ... or you need to 'fix' the P/I split in your SX txns
07:51:05 <warlord> Gokee2: that URL is from version 1.6. We're at 2.4. It's on the File menu. Select a transaction and File -> Print
07:51:56 <warlord> Gokee2: yes, measurements are in points. 72p == 1in
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08:32:37 <JasonBoxLaptop> warlord: I cannot fix them
08:32:44 <JasonBoxLaptop> I spent all day attempting to fix them
08:32:52 <JasonBoxLaptop> The information I have is apparently wrong
08:33:31 <JasonBoxLaptop> I am off by 561.79
08:34:13 <JasonBoxLaptop> I can verify by some 1099-Es that the interest split is only off by about $10 a year, but I am still off by $500 over 7 years
08:34:15 <JasonBoxLaptop> No idea
08:35:07 <JasonBoxLaptop> As this is from 2003, I can only go with the paperwork I have on hand; I can't obtain any further information
08:35:42 <JasonBoxLaptop> To my dismay, I cannot correct this, so, given a $561.79 loan balance, is there some appropriate way to 'write it off'?
08:36:50 <JasonBoxLaptop> The subsequent holder of my loan is carrying it with a lower principal balance, so clearly I must have overstated interest paid
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09:26:17 <flight-ltnt> Hi folks, I'm new to GNUcash but hope it's going to make life easier for myself. I've been landed with looking after the accounts for a golf society. We've got a Treasurers account for paying for things such as our outings, trophies, prizes etc by cheque. All the members make payments into this a/c to help fund the society. What I hope is that GNUcash is going to be able to do is allow me to do is produce a statement
09:26:17 <flight-ltnt> for each member showing their credits and debits and also produce a set of accounts for the society. Is anyone able to provide me with some guidance as to how I would achieve that?
09:31:54 <warlord> JasonBox: it sounds like your P/I split has been wrong.. Or your opening balance is wrong
09:32:37 <warlord> flight-ltnt: Do you know how you would do that accounting with pen & paper?
09:34:21 <warlord> JasonBox: how much history are you creating? Perhaps you should start from scratch instead of trying to load historical data?
09:35:37 <flight-ltnt> Warlord: probably not correctly, I've been playing about with Excel but thought that a dedicated piece of software would be easier but I'm not familiar with the accounting terms.
09:36:39 <warlord> flight-ltnt: I would recommend you read the GnuCash Concepts & Tutorials Guide. It's a great document and will help with a bunch of terms.
10:32:51 <JasonBox> The schedule runs from 11/7/03 to today
10:33:59 <JasonBox> I entered it by hand since the SX does not work for me
10:37:41 <warlord> why not just start as of 1/1/11?
10:38:00 <JasonBox> I have like 8 years of 105.40 payments to account for?
10:38:52 * JasonBox shrug
10:39:00 <JasonBox> I guess it's somewhat pointless
10:39:14 <JasonBox> The cashflow is the most crucial part
10:39:21 <JasonBox> But then why bother with an accounting system at all?
10:39:30 <JasonBox> I can monitor cashflow from my bank account
10:42:04 <warlord> with any accounting system you have to set a start date. You can safely ignore everything that happened before that date. The point is much more than cash flow -- it's also about keeping track of where your money is coming from and going to. Profit & Loss, Balance Sheets, etc.
10:43:26 <warlord> also, your bank only tells you what happened in that. with an accounting system you can look forward. e.g., you wrote a check but it hasn't been cashed
10:43:32 <JasonBox> Yeah, and I initially migrated over to Gnucash back in like 2003
10:43:34 <JasonBox> So that was the date I picked
10:44:19 <JasonBox> It just so happens this loan has been wrong since forever, so what's the correction ex post facto?
10:45:19 <JasonBox> I like my P&L, Balance Sheet, and so forth, or I wouldn't be agonizing over it
10:45:46 <warlord> Um...... That's hard. You could just correct it as of some date and ignore everything before it?
10:45:50 <JasonBox> But given I have incomplete information and it is apparently impossible for me to reconstruct the correct amortization schedule, is there an appropriate fix?
10:46:11 <JasonBox> And believe me, I spent most of yesterday trying
10:46:19 <JasonBox> But for about $500, it gets kind of silly
10:46:40 <JasonBox> I took a hit to equity to zero it, but that might be a poor choice
10:47:06 <JasonBox> The only other idea I have is to go back and adjust against Interest Expense all at once or $n amount every 12 months jsut for giggles
10:47:27 <warlord> Was the P/I split incorrect?
10:47:54 <JasonBox> The loan has passed through 3 different servicing companies; occasionally I seem to get rate reductions, so it's more of a variable APR
10:48:20 <JasonBox> If my principal remaining is more than what the loan company believes, clearly I must have blown the P/I, yes?
10:48:44 <warlord> yes.
10:48:49 <JasonBox> Okay
10:49:06 <warlord> Perhaps match your 1099s and statements?
10:49:07 <JasonBox> I have provided to me the original principal, APR, and the monthly payment amount
10:49:18 <warlord> Do you have monthly statements?
10:49:36 <JasonBox> no, there were never any monthly statements for this loan, or I'd absolutely use those for the win
10:51:21 <JasonBox> My only 'fixes' on the correct valuation that I have are the original amount, which I naively thought would be enough back in the day, and the most recent transfer to a new loan servicer, who provided me the balance as they believe it to be
10:51:46 <JasonBox> So in 2003 and again in 2010 heh
10:52:54 <JasonBox> Other than some 1099-Es with the purported interest received by the servicer that may be tax deductible, I don't seem to have much else
10:54:10 <JasonBox> So since this seems to be a relatively unsolvable mystery, I was hoping there is a most sane accounting appropriate to handwaiving away the difference
10:59:06 <JasonBox> This is going to gnaw at me forever
11:06:21 <JasonBox> The current servicer does have P/I on their Web site, but that's only since 2010 heh
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11:15:49 <warlord> I think you'll need to base your corrections on the 1099s
11:16:05 <warlord> You can transfer between P<->I at that time.
11:17:19 <JasonBox> Ah, that's a cool idea
11:17:42 <JasonBox> Hopefully I can find most of them
11:17:51 <JasonBox> I generally keep tax stuff forever
11:18:05 <warlord> Usually a good idea ;)
11:18:31 <JasonBox> Yeah, but moving arrests that sometimes hah
11:20:04 <warlord> Yeah, I know.. I moved 1.5 years ago and my stuff is still in boxes. I'll be moving again in about 6 weeks and will finally get to unbox it
11:21:28 <JasonBox> Yeah, I finally stopped unboxing stuff
11:21:51 <JasonBox> Then I began to get rid of as much stuff as I good, kind of liberating
11:22:05 <JasonBox> s/good/could/
11:22:32 <JasonBox> I tended to keep the financial stuff close at hand, though, lest I lose it; hopefully I can find the rest of my 1099s
11:22:57 <JasonBox> Or pull off my tax filings
11:23:14 <JasonBox> Something to look forward to later today lol
11:28:24 <warlord> Well, you can rebalance the Principal as of the last transfer or other statement?
11:59:41 <JasonBox> Last transfer?
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12:02:04 <warlord> Yeah, from servicer A to servicer B
12:03:10 <JasonBox> Yeah, I can do that, too
12:03:10 <ihf> is there a way to delete customers and jobs?
12:03:24 <JasonBox> That was my other thought
12:03:49 <JasonBox> Like the idea of taking smaller ajdustments using the 1099s, though
12:04:06 <JasonBox> It's less jarring
12:09:05 <warlord> JasonBox: yep.
12:09:39 <warlord> ihf: no. See http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_How_can_I_delete_an_Invoice.2C_Customer.2C_Vendor.2C_or_Employee.3F
12:10:54 <ihf> OK, thanks. Also is ther a way to create a report that summarizes transactions that have a keyword in the Notes field? I can do the search but is there a wqay to report (totals, etc.) for jsut those transactions?
12:11:19 <warlord> Yep, run the search, and then run Reports -> Account Report
12:15:16 <ihf> perfect. and is there a way to save that as a custom report or do I have to do the serch and the Account Report each time i want to run it? I am trying to use keywords to classify disparate transactions...in this case I want to mark all of the costs associated with hurricane Irene and then be able to run a report.
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12:40:14 <warlord> sorry, I went off for lunch. I think you'll need to rerun the search and rebuild the report each time. I don't know if you can save it. You can try and see if it works, but keep in mind you'll want to change the date often which you can only do from the register.
12:40:29 <warlord> The report itself is really just a "total and print the current register"
13:20:10 <ihf> OK, that's not terrible I was just hoping I could have a report that showed all transactions with tag #hurricane in the notes field and that were incurred this year (or after the hurricane) and to save that. In general I was looking for an easy way to report out transactions related to some event or project anad hashtags seemed to be the only way. Being able to save reports that only include those transactions would have been nice
13:20:53 <warlord> It's possible it might do what you want
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13:21:16 <ihf> i'm not seeing it but that doesn;t prove much :-)
13:22:13 <warlord> Well, if you set up the search for e.g. #hurricane, then run the report, then save it as "Hurricane", then when you re-run the report it should do what you want, maybe..
13:22:33 <warlord> ... So long as you're not looking for a rolling calendar date.
13:24:54 <ike> Greetings. I have hard time understanding the basic concept of Gnucash I suppose. I've read the docs, but I believe it's far beyond my understanding ;-) Sorry for that. The issue is: I want to track my own home expenses, but I don't know how should I enter my Salary. I'm using "Common Accounts" category so I want to insert transaction to Income:Salary... but from what it should be transferred?
13:29:54 <ihf> warlord: perfecto! Thanks for you rhelp. I kept looking at the Save Report button which was grayed out but then I realized that there is Add Report whihc added it to the custom reports list. Works like a charm...perhaps it is obvious to everyone but using hashtags in the notes field and saving custom reports based on a search is a nice way to track project related expenses
13:35:16 <warlord> ike: this is discussed in the Concepts & Tutorial Guide. You should read it. It shows you how to generate a Salary transaction as a Split Transaction from Income:Salary to your Bank (Asset) and Tax (Expense) accounts.
13:35:38 <warlord> ihf: you generally have to change the report name before you can add it.
13:38:08 <ike> warlord: ok. thanks.
13:40:04 <ike> Oh. I get it. Income is not what I have, but what I receive. Doh.
13:40:07 <ike> It's easy now.
13:54:01 <ihf> warlord: yes, I just didn't see Add vs. Save. I was afraid I'd have to break out the Scheme manual.
13:55:54 <warlord> ike: right. Income is the "magic source" of money, Expense is the "magic destination".. Assets is what you "have". Liabilities is what you owe.
13:56:00 <warlord> ihf: LOL
13:56:11 <warlord> Hopefully not.
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14:23:58 <warlord> BIAB
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14:51:27 <ike> warlord-afk: "the magic source of money". sounds great.
14:51:29 <ike> ;-)
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21:29:01 <JasonBoxLaptop> hrm, my cashflow and income/expense reports are running pretty slow, 15-20+ seconds on a core2duo box
21:29:11 <JasonBoxLaptop> Anyway I can do to improve the performance?
21:29:42 <JasonBoxLaptop> File size is 666420 with data from 2003
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21:44:33 <warlord> JasonBox: unfortunately some of the reports are O(n^2) or worse.
21:44:36 <warlord> (in # txns)
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22:21:14 <JasonBoxLaptop> Interesting
22:21:56 <JasonBoxLaptop> Thought about messing with doing reports myself since 2.4.x exposes the data via RDBMS as an option
22:22:41 <JasonBoxLaptop> As a for example, moneydance reports are pretty fast; how do you think they might optimize for that?
22:22:54 <JasonBoxLaptop> Or might just using the db backend instead of the flat file make a difference?
22:25:01 <warlord> They probably have better report algorithms. Like I said, some of the reports are pretty bad. Each one is different, and some of the generic algorithms have not been well optimized. Also, we made some changes in the system that de-optimized queries a lot.
22:26:03 <warlord> Before the biz features the query was very transaction centric. It knew about accounts and splits and such, so it knew that if you gave it a list of accounts it could short-circuit and only look in those account split-lists, which limited the search space.
22:26:37 <warlord> When the queries were genericized to be able to search for different types of objects this shortcut was removed, so now you always search the whole "database".
22:27:22 <warlord> the SQL backend doesn't make a difference in this case at this time; all data is stored in RAM and queried from there. The DB is just a storage mechanism. It does, however, give you the chance to write your own SQL reports, but those would be one-offs and outside GnuCash.
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23:03:20 <JasonBoxLaptop> Well, sure
23:03:52 <JasonBoxLaptop> But possible, which is cool
23:04:16 <JasonBoxLaptop> Looked at the schema briefly this time last year, but haven't had much time since
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23:06:34 <JasonBoxLaptop> In other news, I recovered enough 1098-Es to determine at some point I must have gotten an interest rate reduction of a rather large size, since I go for $10 off a year to $110 off a year
23:06:52 <JasonBoxLaptop> Have to dig some more, heh
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