Re: A BASH script to help get tax-related data from gnucash

[Dr. David Kirkby - Kirkby Microwave Ltd]

On 12/16/17 02:40 PM, David Carlson wrote:

Could this script be referenced somewhere in the GnuCash WIKI?

David C


It would be nice if it was POSIX compliant, so work on any UNIX system.


--
Dr. David Kirkby Ph.D CEng MIET
Kirkby Microwave Ltd
Registered office: Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Althorne, Essex, CM3 6DT, UK.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 08914892.
http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Tel: 07910 441670 / +44 7910 441670 (0900 to 2100 GMT only please)
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Re: GNUCash as a maintenance project?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 26 July 2017 at 16:13, Keith Gallagher  wrote:

>  hello.
>
> Keith Gallagher here, software engineering faculty at Florida Inst. of
> Technology. This coming term I am teaching an advanced course in software
> maintenance and evolution; upper division undergraduates  and graduate
> students are enrolled. (10-12 at this point)
>
> I'm looking for a course project, something I can set the whole class on
> to work on as a team.   I am looking for something that is mature, with
> lots of releases,   has a large and ongoing user community,  and, of
> course, has lots of  "issues" that need to be addressed!  I have contacted
> Brad Kuhn, and old student of mine,  and he suggested GNUCash as a
> possibility.
>
>  All of the students in the class are familiar with open source rubrics
> and guidelines and use of  appropriate repositories.
>
>  But before I send a collection of people  to meddle in the work, I would
> like to have the approval of the community,  and any guidelines or
> suggestions  (or help) that you might have  or wish to offer.  For
> instance: should we do this is a group? Should we do this is a collection
> of individuals? Etc? Etc.?
>

It sounds a good idea. Students could also learn some useful accounting
principles.

There's a list of what users want at

https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request

my own favorite is the ability to create a quotation, and convert it to an
invoice if accepted

https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request/suggestions/2477299-implement-quotations-which-can-be-converted-to-inv



Dave
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Re: For UK users: Will gnucash get ready for Making Tax Digital ?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 July 2017 at 17:54, David Goodenough <
david.goodeno...@linkchoose.co.uk> wrote:

>
> There is a problem.  They want to assign a secret ID to each piece of
> software
> and so if you say it is open source they then refuse to allocate an ID as
> it
> will not be secret.  I have raised this with the cabinet office digital
> dept,
> and they acknowledge that this effectively bans open source which is
> against
> official government policy.  They are trying to get this changed.
>
> David
>

I must admit I can't quite think how, but I'm sure some cryptology expert
could find a solution. Although I don't do it now, I was a regular
developer of the sagemath open-source maths program, started by Prof.
William Stein at the University of Washington.

http://www.sagemath.org/

Prof Stein is an expert in number theory, and many of the users of that
package are too. I will drop a few of them an email, and see if any of them
can come up with a solution.

Dave
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Re: For UK users: Will gnucash get ready for Making Tax Digital ?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 July 2017 at 15:21, John Ralls  wrote:

>
>
>
> > https://hmrcdigital.blog.gov.uk/2016/07/14/talking-openly-at
> -open-source-16/
>
> That talk is about how much HMRC enjoys using software that they don’t
> have to pay for and how they’ve published some of their web code on GitHub.
> It doesn’t say anything about them accepting FOSS programs into MTD.
>
>
>
> > On Jul 25, 2017, at 1:43 AM, Mike Evans  wrote:
> > For those interested in developing.
> >
> > https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation <
> https://developer.service.hmrc.gov.uk/api-documentation>
>
>
> Which has no information on MTD. All of the APIs documented there are for
> getting information *from* HMRC, not sending them information.
>
> It *does* have information about their authentication system, which uses
> the fairly standard “server key” or OAuth key. These keys are per-program
> and completely preclude open-source software because there is no way for an
> open-source project to distribute them without compromising them.
>
> There’s another problem with “approving” an open-source program: What are
> you approving and how does an instance prove that it is the approved code,
> nothing more and nothing less?
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>


OK, a better link - a guide for software developers

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/basic-guide-for-
software-developers

Reading one of the links

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/382943/sd-inductionpack.pdf

it appears that HMRC  provide technical support, and both online and
offline validation servers.

It would not go GnuCash any harm to be listed as supported software on a
government website of the worlds 5th or 6th largest economy. That would
give the "commercial" software companies something they would not expect.

If you wanted John, I would not mind phoning and asking whether support
would be provided to open-source software, and if there are any fees for
submitting software for validation. But as one of the lead developers, if
you feel it is not something that would or could be developed, it would be
pointless me wasting my time.

Dave
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Re: For UK users: Will gnucash get ready for Making Tax Digital ?

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 25 July 2017 at 05:39, John Ralls  wrote:

>
>
> > On Jul 24, 2017, at 4:01 PM, mike.m...@gmx.net wrote:
> >
> >   In about a year's time the UK taxman (HMRC) will only allow approved
> >   accounting software to transmit the transctions required by law to
> >   HMRC.
> >   The project is known as Making Tax Digital or  MTD
> >   No exact details or requirements to softwaremakers have been published,
> >   but will gnucash commit to MTD?
> >   If not, gnucash cannot be used anymore by any UK users.
> >
> >   Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/making-tax-
> digital/overview-of-making-tax-digital
>
> It seems unlikely the we’ll have either the resources (as in developer
> time) or information from HMRC to implement this. If HMRC actually requires
> that account software be submitted to them for evaluation and approval  it
> also seems unlikely that they’d approve any FOSS program.
>
> That aside the page you cite says April 2019 and only for businesses above
> the VAT threshold. It looks like HMRC intend that they’ll collect
> information on individual taxpayers by other means so that individuals will
> have no reporting requirements at all. Since GnuCash is aimed primarily at
> individuals and small businesses it seems that most of our UK users will
> still be able to use GnuCash.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
> Many small businesses, even as small as one person, will be above the VAT
threshold, which is a turnover of £85,000/year (around USD $110,000/year).

Even businesses below that threshold, may well chose to register for VAT.
If a UK company sells a lot of goods outside the European Union, then it
makes sense, as the business can recover the cost of the VAT on items
purchased, but does not need to charge VAT on non-EU sales. If one sells
mainly to individuals in the EU, it would probably not make sense to
register for VAT unless one has to.

That said, GnuCash can't submit the RTI submissions, but my accountant does
that for me, so the fact GnuCash can't do everything a UK business needs,
does not mean that it will not be able to use by UK businesses. HOWEVER,
clearly being able to do more would make it more useful.

If there's no desire/developer time to support this, then its not worth
giving it any more consideration. But IF there was a willingness to develop
it, then I think it would be unfounded to judge that FOSS program would not
be eligible. There are government initiatives here to encourage the use of
open source software in government

https://governmenttechnology.blog.gov.uk/2016/12/15/next-steps-for-open-source-in-government/

Certainly for annual accounts submission, the UK government lists the
protocol to send the information. Some information here for example

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-gateway-submission-protocol-31

As far as I could work out before, if the software used their protocol, it
would work.

Dave
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Re: Issues with Jobs and Purchase Orders.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 30 May 2017 at 12:26, Mike or Penny Novack <
stepbystepf...@dialup4less.com> wrote:

> On 5/29/2017 10:45 PM, Bruce Danielson wrote:
>
>> I agree Dave, and getting that done in 100 hours I think is optimistic.
>> Realistically I think it is probably well beyond the scope of “free”
>> software.
>>
>>
>> If the developers ever considered offering a “Pro” version of GnuCash, on
>> a pay per license basis, that might work.  NCH gets $70 a copy for theirs,
>> and I think at its core, GnuCash is a better product,  But I’m not really
>> familiar with Gnu’s philosophy.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
> Commenting in the middle (for both above and below)
>
> a) "Free Software" licensing means can't do THAT. What would be "legal"
> would be OTHER software that produced feeds (files of transactions, etc.)
> that could be imported into GnuCash. Not only for this. Think of other
> business needs like an inventory system, point of sales system, etc. BTW,
> that's often how large systems are designed, Thus where I used to work, a
> number of other systems sent feeds to the "general ledger" system << which
> was the accounting part >>
>


>
> b) On time and cost. I don't know about Silicon Valley, but around here
> where I used to work, maybe $100/hour. But the time is a gross
> underestimate.


The time estimate I got from a senior developer. It was not a number I
picked out of the air.


> Even if correct for the CODING time has left out many other parts of a
> successful "project". Start with meetings of a USER GROUP (+ business
> analyst) which will decide on exactly what this new subsystem will do. Then
> a systems analyst specs the new system and a testing plan for it. Only then
> it is coded. Then it is tested (user group for that too). Where I worked
> they used to estimate the coding part as usually 40% or under of the total
> time << remember, a 2 hour meeting with 5 users and an analyst is 12 people
> hours >>
>

My experience of developing open-source software, includes projects I have
started from scratch, and huge projects like SageMath

http://www.sagemath.org/

which was started by Professor William Stein at the University of
Washington, but has 100 or so developers. These don't tend to need great
big long meetings, that tend to eat up lots of time in companies. I think a
lot of time is wasted in companies in meetings, which is why places have
"stand up meetings"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-up_meeting

to cut down on the unnecessary time these eat up.

I suspect thread on features for purchase orders, and another on features
for quotes/proforma invoices, would be able to reach some sort of consensus
about what are the most desirable features.

There are a number of people wanting such a feature - quotations has 57
votes here

https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request/suggestions/2477299-implement-quotations-which-can-be-converted-to-inv

with a comment by Geert Janssens
 that "I have
merged these two ideas into one because in code they are essentially the
same thing. Implementing quotes for customers is about the same code as
implementing purchase orders for vendors."



> I would NOT be willing to get involved volunteering my time unless there
> were a committed user group willing to do their parts. Too often we see
> complaints after "does not do what I expected or what I need". Sorry, but
> the new program IS correct, it does what it does, where were YOU when it
> was time to specify what it was SUPPOSED to do?  What it had to do to
> satisfy your needs?
>
> Michael D Novack, FLMI  retired senior systems/business analyst for
> one of the world's largest insurance companies
>

Do you have the time, skills and enthusiasm to implement quotes/purchase
orders/ proforma invoices, IF a group could be set up that could set some a
specification, and offer to do testing? From the number of people
requesting such features, it would seem likely that such a group could be
set up, and come up with a set of specifications. Perhaps with comments on
a Wiki and/or email discussions.

But it needs someone willing to code it. Personally I don't see 100 hours
as a lot of time in the development of an open-source project. People tend
to work on things like this when they have a bit of spare time. It is not
like 3 weeks of work where someone does nothing else, but more likely one
hour/day over the course of several months. One day one a person might
spend several hours working on something, and another week they do nothing.
At least that's my experience of open-source software.

Dave
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Re: Issues with Jobs and Purchase Orders.

[Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd)]

On 29 May 2017 at 16:53, Bruce Danielson  wrote:

> I see that clearly Dave as an excellent addition – and quotations are
> related to purchase orders as invoices are to bills and customers to
> vendors.
>
>
>
> Thanks for that bit of insight.
>
>
>
> Bruce
>


I doubt quotations and/or purchase orders will be added any time soon - if
at all.

I did offer one of the GnuCash developers a modest sum ($100) if he could
add support for quotations, as it would benefit my business. He did not do
jobs for money, but someone else who would, had no time to do the job. But
the developer estimated  adding support for quotations would be 100 hours
of work, and I told the amount of money a software developer earned in
Silicon Valley was about $500/hour. A simple bit of maths indicates that to
pay for this to be developed on a commercial basis ($50,000) , which was
far in excess of the $100 I was offering.

The developers have a roadmap,

https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Roadmap

which seems primarily on cleaning up the code. Hence unless there was a
substantial amount of money raised, I don't think quotations will be added
any time soon, and I'm lead to believe purchase orders would be similar
code.

*If *someone could find a GnuCash developer willing to add purchase orders
/ quotations for a fixed feed, and there was crowdfunding to get it going,
*conceivably* these features could be added. But I don't think this is
likely to happen to be honest.


Dave
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