On Mon, 19 Sep 2005, Jordan Gunderson wrote:
Ross Werner wrote:
Gnucash can totally due that. You add accounts, put money in when you get
it, and take it out when you spend it.
What I want is more something like this:
In simplified world, I have four accounts: Checking Account, Grocery
Account, ComputerToys Account, and Paycheck Account.
How things normally work at the moment in GnuCash:
Let's say I get a $10 paycheck (using small numbers so people don't get
jealous at my 400k mortgage) ... I enter $10 into the Checking Account (as
coming from the Paycheck Account). If I spend $5 on groceries I then
transfer $5 from the Checking Account to the Grocery Account. If I then
spend $2 on ComputerToys, I transfer $2 from Checking Account to
ComputerToys. Now I have $3 left in Checking, and I've spent $2 on
ComputerToys and $5 on Groceries.
GnuCash does all that beautifully. But here's what I want it to do:
Let's say I get a $10 paycheck ... I enter $10 into the Checking Account,
and then I can *also* record somewhere that $5 of that money is earmarked
for grocery spending, and $4 is earmarked for ComputerToys.
Then later one when I spend the $5 on groceries and $2 on ComputerToys, I
can look at some sort of report/balance sheet/whatever that tells me that
I know have $0 left earmarked for grocery spending, and $2 left earmarked
for ComputerToys. Come next $10 paycheck I do the same thing, so now I
have $5 in the grocery fund and $6 in the ComputerToys fund.
Now, what I *could* do is set up all my budget "earmarked" categories as
actuall GnuCash accounts, and instead of putting money into the "Checking
Account" when I get paid, divvy them up into these different accounts.
However, that makes reconciling the books a pain in the butt because I'll
have to add up all my assets and then add up all my "earmarked" categories
and make sure they match, and if they don't, good luck trying to find
which category has money missing and why.
Maybe I could just export my GnuCash accounts to some text format, and
then write a program that will figure out how much I've spent in each
category and keep track of it separately? Hmmm...
~ Ross
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