On 2/2/2018 7:04 AM, Wm via gnucash-devel wrote:
On 31/01/2018 16:09, Christopher Lam wrote:
Hi Matt- I thought this should move to the devel list, because of
technical details, and this discussion will be very speculative.
I had a thought about how envelope budgeting could work: "divide your
paycheck into separate envelopes for different purposes".
A solution: *Create another type of transaction.*
There's already u(n)reconciled, (c)leared, (y)reconciled, (v)oid
transactions. And (f)rozen I believe is unused. Let's create a new
type - (b)udget. But the balances are handled differently.
I disagree that the time is yet ripe for this discussion to be on the
developer's list. It should be there only AFTER the "what is wanted" has
been fully defined from the user perspective. The reason some of you
think the time IS ripe is that you are missing some of the potential
complexities of the behavior desired << you are considering only the
special case where the amounts are equal >> That I can see "special
case" is that although I don't use "envelope budgeting" I frequently am
dealing with an analogous situation where the amounts are sometimes
equal and sometimes not*.
To see this limiting the context of "envelope budgeting" we need to
realize that there are two types of envelope budgeting, strict << CAN'T
use more than what is in an envelope >> and less strict where if an
expenditure DOES use more than what is left in an envelope the
remaining portion comes from some other envelope of general funds. I
contend that this IS the real situation that most people using "envelope
budgeting" face. Yes, you may have allocated a certain amount for the
envelope for "dining out" or other discretionary activity BUT if the
envelope say for "gasoline" doesn't contain enough to fill the tank you
are likely to decide to skip going out for dinner rather than give up
driving.
I am suggesting that IN GENERAL going to use manual adjustment/choices
so the call to automate premature unless can deal with those issues.
Michael D Novack
* Examples from my world (accounting for non-profits)
The organization has a fund for "zero turn mower for orchard Y".
The fund has built up to a balance of $2400 by the time the mower is
purchased for $2700. All the funds in the special account are used plus
$300 of general funds.
The organization sells tee shirts as a fund raiser. For
non-profits, gross sales and cost of goods sold are line items on the
990/990-EZ. So the sale of a tee shirt is a debit to cash, a credit to
gross sales, a debit to cost of goods sold, and a credit to tee shirt
inventory << but presumably the latter two amounts are less than the
first two or would not be making a "profit" >>
And yes, I am able to do a "two side split" transaction, but even
for me might be quicker/easier to do it in two simple transactions.
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