2018-10-16 GnuCash IRC logs

00:04:10 *** Mechtilde has joined #gnucash
00:04:52 *** Mechtilde has quit IRC
00:05:10 *** Mechtilde has joined #gnucash
00:25:46 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
00:26:02 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
00:49:49 *** bastianilso has joined #gnucash
00:57:13 *** chris has joined #gnucash
01:00:03 *** chris has quit IRC
01:00:10 *** chris has joined #gnucash
01:09:17 *** jenniferw has joined #gnucash
01:09:55 <jenniferw> Hi. My name is Jennifer, I’m new here. I’ve been using GnuCash for my small ebay reselling business now for 7 months — it’s been great!
01:12:39 <jenniferw> I decided to go with GnuCash because I was learning accounting from a double entry accounting perspective and I found QuickBooks actually difficult to use since they try to get you to do everything through forms hiding the books from you. Also had problems with quickbooks importing data correctly from Paypal.
01:18:59 *** frakturfreak has quit IRC
01:32:52 *** frakturfreak has joined #gnucash
01:39:43 *** bastianilso has quit IRC
01:59:37 *** Mechtilde has quit IRC
02:21:53 *** puck has quit IRC
02:24:12 *** puck has joined #gnucash
02:25:46 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
02:26:43 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
02:53:35 *** gjanssens has joined #gnucash
02:53:35 *** ChanServ sets mode: +o gjanssens
02:53:39 <gjanssens> .
03:11:00 *** fekepp has quit IRC
03:25:12 *** fekepp has joined #gnucash
03:33:50 *** squd_0xFFEE has quit IRC
03:33:58 *** squd_0xFFEE has joined #gnucash
03:59:39 *** GabrieleV has joined #gnucash
04:26:28 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
04:26:44 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
05:57:27 *** fabior has joined #gnucash
06:03:55 *** Aussie_matt has quit IRC
06:13:00 *** jotrago has joined #gnucash
06:26:04 *** storyjesse has joined #gnucash
06:26:28 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
06:27:25 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
06:49:22 *** Jimraehl1 has joined #gnucash
06:49:24 *** fell has joined #gnucash
06:50:30 *** jotrago has quit IRC
06:50:51 *** Jimraehl1 has left #gnucash
06:54:37 *** Mechtilde has joined #gnucash
06:54:55 *** jotrago has joined #gnucash
07:00:09 *** fabior has quit IRC
07:32:02 *** jotrago1 has joined #gnucash
07:32:25 *** jotrago has quit IRC
07:32:26 *** jotrago1 is now known as jotrago
07:37:51 *** gour has joined #gnucash
08:00:02 *** jotrago1 has joined #gnucash
08:00:55 *** jotrago has quit IRC
08:00:55 *** jotrago1 is now known as jotrago
08:17:53 *** Cuare has quit IRC
08:33:15 *** KevinDB has quit IRC
08:36:51 *** KevinDB has joined #gnucash
08:50:00 *** jotrago1 has joined #gnucash
08:50:25 *** jotrago has quit IRC
08:50:25 *** jotrago1 is now known as jotrago
08:55:41 *** jotrago has quit IRC
09:00:40 *** zipppy has quit IRC
09:13:28 *** zipppy has joined #gnucash
09:14:28 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
09:14:44 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
09:50:36 *** oozer has joined #gnucash
10:05:52 <warlord> .
10:06:20 <warlord> jenniferw: Hi Jennifer. Welcome to the #gnucash community.
10:06:53 <jenniferw> Hey warlord, thank you!
10:07:21 <warlord> squd_0xFFEE: do you have baysian matching on or off?
10:08:32 <jenniferw> I joined the group because I know how well GnuCash has worked for my business, and it seems like it might be the best option for personal finances as well because it is double entry accounting system as well as can generate nice reports. Just wondering if others use it here for personal finances as well, and I am wondering how well the live stock quote feature works with respect to showing us our real time net worth.
10:09:58 *** jerryq has quit IRC
10:14:27 *** User has joined #gnucash
10:16:37 <warlord> jenniferw: I know lots of people use it for personal finance.
10:17:06 <warlord> I wouldn't use the stock quotes for "real time", but you could certainly do a daily summary. Me, I tend to load quotes very infrequently (monthly?)
10:19:39 <jenniferw> Once per day is fine, in fact, you are right it doesn’t make sense to do it so often.. Even once per week would be good for me, or any time I log in when I am curious what my current net worth is. Are the real time quotes reflected in the Profit & Loss report at the bottom? Net income.
10:22:04 *** User has quit IRC
10:22:52 <warlord> jenniferw: depends on which quote source you specify in the report options
10:42:27 *** bertbob has quit IRC
10:44:24 *** bertbob has joined #gnucash
10:46:33 *** storyjesse has quit IRC
10:55:36 *** Mechtilde has quit IRC
11:00:45 *** gncbot sets mode: +o fell
11:14:28 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
11:15:25 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
11:16:01 *** fabior has joined #gnucash
11:30:35 *** jotrago has joined #gnucash
11:35:19 <jralls> squd_oxFFEE: It generally takes 4-5 imports to get the matcher scores high enough to disambiguate most entries.
12:08:31 *** Mechtilde has joined #gnucash
12:21:47 *** hgv has joined #gnucash
12:59:33 *** fabior has quit IRC
13:03:16 *** calvinct has joined #gnucash
13:15:10 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
13:15:25 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
13:23:08 *** kael has joined #gnucash
13:27:51 *** User has joined #gnucash
13:32:24 *** User has quit IRC
13:36:38 *** hgv has quit IRC
13:36:46 *** jerryq has joined #gnucash
13:39:20 *** fabior has joined #gnucash
13:41:44 <jralls> chris: Which price source are you looking for a benchmark on?
13:41:56 <chris> weighted-average of course
13:42:01 *** fabior has quit IRC
13:44:04 <chris> imo the weighted-average should now be comparable with average-cost
13:44:30 <chris> i plan to clean up the price-calculators, avoiding (set!) calls completely
13:44:33 <jralls> Is wall-clock good enough or should I put the profiling code back?
13:44:46 <chris> profile would be good
13:45:38 <jralls> Is your aversion to set! a functional-programming-purity thing or is there a performance advantage?
13:46:58 <chris> https://www.gnu.org/software/guile/manual/guile.html#Variables-and-the-VM - "If a variable is ever set!..."
13:48:01 <chris> someone on #guile kindly educated me
13:48:47 <chris> VM is guile-2.0 onwards I think.. definitely not <=1.8
13:50:03 <chris> anyway off sleeping!
13:50:19 <jralls> OK, G'night.
13:56:01 <jenniferw> You know what would be *very* nice? If GnuCash added a report to generate Profit & Loss with CoGs subtracted from Income to come up with Gross Margin.. then have all the other expenses below as operating income. This is a pretty standard report from what I’m told. It’s not a big deal though really since I can generate that report from the current P&L report printout, but I do have to make the report by hand.
13:58:24 <jralls> jenniferw: Manufacturing isn't really GnuCash's target market.
13:59:26 <jenniferw> Well what I mentioned above isn’t necessarily for manufacturing is it? The CPA that told me about it does accounting for online reselling.
13:59:56 <jenniferw> What is the target market for GnuCash, primarily?
14:00:09 <jenniferw> It works wonders for my online reselling business. Love it love it
14:00:35 <jralls> Personal and sole proprietorships doing consulting.
14:01:25 <jenniferw> I really look forward to using it for personal after I figure out how to do stocks properly & live quotes.. it’s a bit confusing / intimidating for me :)
14:02:19 <jenniferw> Also I don’t know how to go about tracking assets and depreciation and all that.. in fact I don’teven knowhow to account for depreciaton in business. I expenses the office shelving ($70) all at once under office expense
14:02:38 <jralls> Live quotes is pretty straightforward as long as you're not using Windows. The primary Windows perl provider, strawberry, has broken their repository for a module we need for online quotes.
14:03:11 <jenniferw> I am using mac os x
14:03:31 <jralls> The IRS isn't likely to get on your case for expensing $70. ;-)
14:03:40 <jenniferw> :)
14:03:50 <jenniferw> how do you track your personal assets in gnucash?
14:04:01 <jenniferw> debit assets, and credit equity right?
14:04:25 <jenniferw> and vice versa
14:05:15 <jenniferw> Like say I want to account for my home and car assets in gnucash
14:05:19 <jralls> To create an opening balance, yes. After that credit an income account, which is a special flavor of Equity that GnuCash separates out; Expense is the same.
14:05:56 <jenniferw> Do i create a separate account for the home and each car?
14:06:16 <jralls> Yes, because each is a separately-priced asset.
14:07:43 <jralls> Though I wonder if you really want to carry your cars on your books. That seems like unnecessary work.
14:08:18 <jenniferw> How about gold and silver ? do you put those in stock type accounts?
14:09:54 <jralls> Do you have actual bullion and silver bars? Or derivatives based on bullion and silver held by someone else?
14:13:30 <jralls> Back to stock quotes, for MacOS there's a "Finance Quote Upgrade" script in the dmg. Drag that to the same folder you put GnuCash and double click it. It will open a Terminal Window and run the script. You'll get a bunch of questions, just hit "return" to take the defaults.
14:25:06 *** kael has quit IRC
14:35:12 *** redlizard has quit IRC
14:41:08 <jralls> gjanssens: About https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/417 what do you think about disabling links in the transaction report? I don't remember it being "widely requested".
14:52:45 *** hgv has joined #gnucash
14:57:48 <frakturfreak> jenniferw: Are we talking about accounts for your business. If so, ask your CPA whether it makes sense to put a car as an asset into the firm, depending on the circumstances there might be solutions that are more tax efficient. Also for setting up an account for each car, that’s because of gnucash’s limitation of not including support for deprecable assets as a seperate report and joint
14:57:49 <frakturfreak> accounts for the same types of assets as in other software (Which it probably won’t because of all the different tax regulations around the word)
15:08:10 *** kael has joined #gnucash
15:10:55 *** al has joined #gnucash
15:12:15 *** al has quit IRC
15:12:43 <jenniferw> frakurfreak, sorry I was talking about cars and home with respect to my personal accounting. Currently I only use GnuCash for my small business; all my accounts for business are dedicated to business only. The way I get money in and out of my sole proprietorship business accounts is via Owner Contributions & Owner’s Draw equity accounts. I am currently using Personal Capital to track my personal finances and well I am not impressed for a variety of
15:12:44 <jenniferw> reasons: 1) it’s always behind a few days 2) nothing can beat double entry accounting as far as categorization that I’ve seen (Mint is pretty sad compared to GnuCash in this respect from what I have seen); 3) personal capital’s budgeting is horrid — although I am not sure how good GnuCash budgeting is as I have not yet used it.
15:14:21 <jenniferw> I do like how personal capital lets you dynamicaly see your net worth by pulling everything in. I’d like to do something similar with GnuCash if possible.
15:15:04 *** fabior has joined #gnucash
15:15:10 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
15:16:04 <jenniferw> jralls thanks for your help. The gold and silver I was referring to is physical bullion. I’ll do as you say with respect to the live stock quote tool on mac os x thanks
15:16:07 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
15:25:01 *** calvinct1 has joined #gnucash
15:25:55 *** calvinct has quit IRC
15:25:55 *** calvinct1 is now known as calvinct
15:28:15 *** fell sets mode: +o warlord
15:36:11 *** hgv has quit IRC
15:38:43 *** bertbob has quit IRC
15:40:36 *** bertbob has joined #gnucash
15:45:01 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
15:47:39 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
15:54:08 <squd_0xFFEE> jralls - thank you. I will do a couple months at a time and see what happens now that i have that info , knowing it will be worth it TY
15:55:09 <squd_0xFFEE> warlord yet baysian matching is on. TY
15:57:12 *** redlizard has joined #gnucash
15:59:14 <redlizard> Hiya. I'm writing some gnucash scripts using the python bindings that I want to call repeatedly in a loop. If I do call them in a loop, though, they will fail, because gnucash will try to save backup files each time I modify and save my book, which sometimes happens multiple times in the same second.
15:59:35 <redlizard> Is there any way using the python bindings I can configure gnucash to not save backup files in the first place?
16:00:00 <warlord> redlizard: how about just adding a "sleep 1' between saves?
16:00:39 <redlizard> Quite inconvenient at scale.
16:01:03 <redlizard> I'd prefer to solve this issue properly
16:01:46 <warlord> redlizard: there is no way to turn off backups.
16:01:53 <warlord> It's not an option.
16:02:10 <warlord> So really, you need to ensure there is at least 1 second between saves.
16:02:30 <warlord> Note also that a save may take > 1s to complete if you have lots of data.
16:02:30 <redlizard> Hm. That's annoying.
16:02:50 <warlord> Or change to a SQL backend where there is no "save".
16:05:53 <redlizard> I shall post a feature request on it, then.
16:06:07 <redlizard> In the meantime, could I trigger a backup cleanup run with dt = 0?
16:06:31 <warlord> No, dt=0 means "keep forever". Smallest is dt =1
16:07:18 <warlord> And frankly, while I can't speak for the current developers, I doubt that feature will be implemented by the current developers. The goal is to eventually migrate to SQL as main storage which means it wouldn't be required.
16:08:06 <warlord> Now, if you make a PR with the feature implemented it's more likely to get into a release. ;)
16:10:27 <redlizard> Hm. I could do that. Navigating the different layers from XML backend all the way to python bindings would be tricky though.
16:10:54 <redlizard> Is there any room in the API at the moment for customizing per-backend settings at all?
16:11:12 <warlord> Honestly I don't know.
16:11:17 <redlizard> Ooh
16:11:22 <redlizard> if (gnc_prefs_get_file_retention_policy() == XML_RETAIN_NONE)
16:11:37 <redlizard> Let's see if I can trigger that mode.
16:18:52 <warlord> you could set the pref first.
16:19:05 <redlizard> Yeah, trying to figure out how to do that through python.
16:19:13 <warlord> I dont know if you can
16:20:34 <redlizard> There is a SwigMethod for it, I just need to find out how to access it.
16:31:56 *** gour has quit IRC
16:33:00 *** Mechtilde has quit IRC
16:41:42 <redlizard> Hm, is that python SWIG stuff even in use at all?
16:42:28 *** gjanssens has quit IRC
16:43:53 <warlord> i honestly dont know. I dont build or use the python bindings.
16:44:27 <redlizard> Hm.
16:53:22 <redlizard> Perhaps I could create a settings file somewhere in /tmp and then point gnucash to it using an envvar?
17:05:55 <warlord> No, the options/settings are in GSettings (or some other setting subsystem)
17:06:05 <warlord> No file to be "pointed" at, AFAIK.
17:06:20 <redlizard> I found something even more interesting.
17:06:26 <warlord> Seriously, your best option is to either use SQL, or force a 1 second delay between saves.
17:06:37 <warlord> Why are you saving data so frequently, anyways?
17:06:41 <redlizard> The python bindings ignore all of my gsettings in the first place.
17:07:34 <redlizard> The gnucash application has the never-keep-backups config, but the python script ignores that.
17:07:56 <warlord> Hmm
17:09:52 <redlizard> I'm saving data frequently because my python script is a thin wrapper over the python bindings, which is then called repeatedly to do basic operations from a non-python script.
17:10:06 <redlizard> Which means just about every edit is an open-save-close cycle.
17:10:33 <warlord> redlizard: well, THERE"S your problem. :)
17:11:03 <redlizard> The problem is that the gnucash python bindings are apparently not set up for that workflow.
17:11:19 <warlord> GnuCash isn't set up for that workflow.
17:11:29 <warlord> using ANY metho
17:11:31 <warlord> method
17:11:48 <redlizard> Why?
17:12:25 <redlizard> I mean, I'm sure it's not great performance wise, but that's not a limiting factor for me.
17:21:41 *** Aussie_matt has joined #gnucash
17:23:13 *** calvinct has quit IRC
17:27:31 <warlord> Well, because primarily GnuCash is a Desktop app.
17:28:23 <warlord> There *is* an API under the GUI, and the python bindings give you access to that, but still, it is designed as a GUI app. Users don't open and close gnucash miultiple times per second. The app startup alone can take well longer than that.
17:28:32 <jralls> redlizard: Because GnuCash operates on a session, so every time you open a session, you load the data file into memory and every time you close the session you write it back out. That's separate from autosave. You need to write your script entirely in Python, opening the session at the beginning and closing it at the end.
17:30:27 <redlizard> For essentially performance reasons?
17:30:50 <jralls> I don't understand the question.
17:31:53 <warlord> redlizard: it's not a performance question -- it's an architecture question.
17:32:02 <warlord> (but it's also, somewhat, a performance question)
17:32:05 <redlizard> The question is, what would go wrong if I do open/save/close sessions in quick succession? Other than the autosave problem.
17:32:44 <redlizard> I do understand that the design isn't really set up for it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work.
17:33:03 <warlord> It's clearly not working ;)
17:33:21 <redlizard> Yes, but (as far as I can tell) ONLY because of this autosave issue.
17:34:19 <redlizard> Which is clearly something that's going wrong because nobody bothered with my particular flavor of craziness before, not for any fundamental reasons.
17:34:33 <jralls> redlizard: It's NOT autosave. When you close the session it either writes out your changes to disk or it discards them.
17:34:37 <warlord> it's not autosave -- it's the backup.
17:34:44 <redlizard> Right -- backup, not autosave. Sorry.
17:35:29 <jralls> No, not backup either. That's the old data, what you loaded. You've changed the state in memory and that's the new file.
17:36:21 <warlord> jralls: his issue is that if there are two runs within the same second it gets confused because the backup file has the same name
17:37:15 <jralls> warlord: I don't think so. If he was managing to do that the second session would refuse to load because of the lock. Unless he's being stupid and overriding the lock.
17:37:43 <jralls> If he's being stupid then the second save will overwrite the first save and the first job's changes are lost.
17:38:07 <redlizard> No, warlord is right. I'm doing open-save-close twice in a second.
17:38:08 <warlord> jralls: no, it's consecutive load-save-load-save
17:38:19 <redlizard> Each of which correctly removes the lock afterwards.
17:38:23 <warlord> the lock is released between.
17:38:38 <warlord> and his data is small enough that it can load / process / save in less that 1/2 a second.
17:39:19 <jralls> At more than one-per-second it's either not synchronous or it's a trivial data set. GnuCAsh doesn't load non-trivial data sets in less than a second.
17:39:43 <redlizard> It is indeed a trivial dataset.
17:40:07 <redlizard> I expect it will stay small for the foreseeable future, though I don't really know where the boundary of "trivial" lies.
17:40:36 <redlizard> How many transactions do you need before loading and saving takes more than half a second?
17:42:10 <jralls> Usually only a few hundred. Most users see load times in the tens of seconds.
17:42:51 <jralls> Depends on your disk channel, of course. If you've got a fast SSD it will suck in a larger dataset in less time.
17:43:42 <redlizard> Does it really depend on the disk? Surely a file with a hundred thousand transactions is still small enough for my disk to cough up within a second.
17:44:03 <jralls> But warlord's original suggestion, that you switch to a SQLite3 backend, will remove the new-file-every-time constraint and save you the pain.
17:44:51 <redlizard> I see.
17:44:59 <redlizard> So is the plan to deprecate the xml backend entirely?
17:46:36 <jralls> XML will eventually be a backup and transfer format, yes, but that's several years out.
17:48:07 <jralls> Though I'm contemplating having it load an in-memory SQLite3 database to enable replacing QofQuery with SQL queries. QofQuery has proven not to scale well.
17:49:54 <redlizard> Would that mean replacing half the data structures in gnucash?
17:51:11 <jralls> No. It's either tossing all of them and working strictly from the database or keeping all of them but loading only the few that one needs to do some operation.
17:51:38 <redlizard> Right, that makes sense.
17:52:54 <jralls> Or at first perhaps still loading everything and just retrieving the GUIDs with QofQuery and then using those to look up the in-memory objects.
17:54:33 <redlizard> Meanwhile... I think I would prefer to not litter my accounting.git directory with backup copies, even if I do redesign my scripts to use longer sessions.
17:56:04 <jralls> Right. So use the SQL backend. One file, no backups, save is part of committing the edit. Much cleaner.
17:56:32 <jralls> Plus it has a prayer of scaling as your book gets larger.
17:56:37 *** fabior has quit IRC
17:57:16 <jralls> Though at some point you'll still get a performance hit from having to load the book every time.
17:58:04 <redlizard> Right.
18:06:32 *** kael has quit IRC
18:06:41 *** kael has joined #gnucash
18:08:58 *** jerryq has quit IRC
18:17:58 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
18:18:55 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
18:21:36 *** fell has quit IRC
18:21:50 *** fell has joined #gnucash
18:22:22 *** gncbot sets mode: +o fell
19:13:20 *** jerryq has joined #gnucash
19:14:42 *** kael has quit IRC
19:19:31 *** kael has joined #gnucash
19:24:47 *** kael has quit IRC
19:25:40 *** KaiForce has joined #gnucash
19:59:34 <fell> warlord: wiki currently again needs ~1' for edits.
20:18:40 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
20:18:58 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
20:45:29 *** KaiForce has quit IRC
21:54:38 *** oozer has quit IRC
22:17:52 *** storyjesse has joined #gnucash
22:18:40 *** boldstripe has quit IRC
22:19:36 *** boldstripe has joined #gnucash
22:39:52 *** storyjesse has quit IRC
23:02:44 <fell> jralls: was rw.po removed from cmake by accident or becaus it had in between only 186 translated messages?
23:03:29 <fell> Oops, it is listed.
23:29:37 <fell> Funny, TP lists our as.po in http://translationproject.org/team/as.html Version 3.3; Translated: 0 / 5239, but not in http://translationproject.org/domain/gnucash.html.
23:30:39 <fell> because they have no team, but many files.
23:35:59 <fell> ta & te have also no team, but are listed in their gnucash domain.
23:38:37 <fell> Ah, they have teams, but no team address.