from:"Jim DeLaHunt"

Re: [GNC] Dealing with mutual funds

2024-11-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Boniforti:

On 2024-11-03 02:25, Boniforti Flavio wrote:

...As of now, I have just put all the CHF Cash in that account.
As I've added CHF in 5-6 different transactions and in between those I have
also converted to USD and bought VT stocks, would I need to zero the "CHF
Cash" account, then add each CHF wire transfer transaction individually?
And then for each currency conversion I did, create the according
transaction between "CHF Cash" and "USD Cash" accounts, after which I would
add the VT purchase transactions - right?
If I do it like that, I could "hide" the ForEx trading fees by simply
adjusting the conversion rate (like if I had converted CHF 1'000.- and I
got USD 1'140.- and paid 1 USD fees, I could just "ignore" the fee and
adjust the conversion rate so that it gives CHF 1000 --> USD 1140). Would
that work?
Would this process also work when buying VT stocks? In that case, I buy a
fixed amount of VT stocks at the VT price, and I could "hide" the fees by
adjusting the stock unit price?!


I must admit that I am not following everything you are talking about here.

However, I read you asking, "would that work?". There are two people who 
can answer that: you, and your accountant.  It is up to you to decide 
what information you want your bookkeeping to provide for you.  Do you 
care about knowing how efficient your CHF-USD transactions are, or do 
you not care?  Are you willing to do more complex data entry to track 
extra information, or not? And, your accountant can give you insight 
about what information is helpful, or even required, in your situation 
and jurisdiction.


Maybe people on this list will also give you answers to the questions 
above. But if not, one reason is that we are not the right people to 
answer such questions.



What's not clear to me at this point is: if I will have 1000 VT stocks,
where will the actual value be reflected/calculated? Is it depending on
manual retrieving the VT quotes via Finance::Quote?


Tell us what you mean by "actual value".

Do you mean the "current market value" of those shares? If so, it varies 
over time.  The price at which you purchased the shares becomes one data 
point at one time for values. The quotes retrieved via Finance::Quote 
become other data points at other times. GnuCash's "Price Database" will 
let you see all the price data points which GnuCash has.


Or, do you mean the "cost basis"? In that case, I believe GnuCash 
determines it by the transaction at which you buy the shares. If the 
transaction says that you paid 1,000 CHF for 100 shares of VT, then the 
cost basis of that lot of VT shares is 100 CHF/share. If the transaction 
says that you paid 1,140 USD for the 100 shares, then the cost basis is 
114 USD/share. Can you include the cost of making the purchase, such as 
broker commissions or foreign exchange fees, in the cost basis?  That 
may be regulated by the rules for calculating capital gains in your 
jurisdiction. That makes it a good question to ask your accountant.


I hope this is helpful. Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Importing CSV exchange rate prices

2024-11-02 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Andrew:

On 2024-11-02 05:27, Andrew Beattie wrote:

Hi all

I’m successfully importing stock prices in multiple currencies into gnucash, 
but can’t seem to find a way to import exchange rates.  I’ve tried setting 
namespace to “Currencies” which is what’s used in the price editor, but the 
import routine highlights any line with namespace Currencies in red and says 
not all fields could be parsed.

Is it possible to import exchange rates in this way - I’ve down quite a bit of 
googling on it and not found an solution.


Simple, just look in the GnuCash tutorial and guide, section 9.6. 
Setting Share Price 
<https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>... oh, 
nothing there about importing prices.


Ah well, at least the GnuCash wiki has an article "CSV Import/Export", 
with section 1.3 "Importing Prices" 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/CSV_Import/Export#Importing_Prices>... 
oh, that section is empty.


Well, I know that I used to import currency exchange rates from my 
currency to a couple of other major currencies in the past, but I don't 
have notes at hand about exactly how I did it.


You are using the menu item File… Import… Import prices from a CSV 
file…, right?


The first page of the price import assistant has an example currency 
import table:

CURRENCY;USD:2016-11-21;1.56;GBP

Do your CSV file lines have those columns? Do the instructions on that 
page help?


If you do figure something out, I encourage you to write instructions in 
the above Wiki page on CSV Import/Export. Whatever you can contribute, 
it will be better than literally nothing.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Forces Rebalance Causes Fatal Error - Now with images

2024-11-02 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

following which GnuCash silently crashes.


This is a separate issue. GnuCash should not not crash. When it does, 
you have three options:


1. Find a way to work around the crash.

2. Upgrade to a newer version of GnuCash, if any, which fixes the 
problem that caused the crash.


3. File a carefully described bug report, to help the developers fix the 
problem.


As far as a workaround, my first suggestion is to check and repair all 
your accounts. From the Accounts list, select menu item Actions… Check & 
Repair… Check & Repair all . This tells GnuCash to go over each 
transaction and fix those which are badly structured. I suspect it won't 
balance the unbalanced transactions, but it might correct some 
corruption in your book which encourages GnuCash to crash.


Next, it sounds like the crash happens when you rebalance a second 
transaction.  If that is the case, you might try opening one unbalanced 
transaction, rebalancing it, then saving the file, before you attempt to 
rebalance a second transaction. If you still get a crash, then rebalance 
one transaction, quit GnuCash, and restart GnuCash. Yes, workarounds 
like this are tedious. But once you balance the transactions, you won't 
have to do it again.




When I reopen GnuCash I am presented with cannot get a lock popup

I can delete the file 2024 Accounts.gnucash.LCK to restart GnuCash.


This is yet a separate issue.  It is normal GnuCash behaviour when 
starting after a crash.  GnuCash makes a .LCK file when it has a book 
file open, to make it less likely that someone will use a second copy of 
GnuCash to open the same book file.  Normally, GnuCash deletes the .LCK 
file when it exits normally. When GnuCash crashes, the .LCK file 
remains. GnuCash puts up a dialogue to warn you that someone else might 
be using the book file.  One of the options is "Open anyway". If you 
know that the .LCK file comes from your previous use of that file, and 
it is there because GnuCash crashed, then select that option. GnuCash 
will open your book file, and you can resume work.


So, the "lock popup" and the .LCK file are a consequence of the crash 
problem, but they are not a part of the crash problem.


Does that help?

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt




Nothing has been changed of course, and there was no time to save 
anything. Some times Even the first try ends abnormally.


Any ideas, anyone, Bueller… anyone? 

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Re: [GNC] Transaction Report: Table for Exporting

2024-10-26 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Fred:… Pa

Sometimes things are hidden in plain sight.

On 2024-10-26 09:39, Fred Tydeman wrote:

I am running Gnucash 5.9 on Fedora Linux 40

I have done a Transaction Report
In the General Options
I have checked Table for Exporting
I do not see any table
   in either the report (at the bottom)
   or in ~/Documents/ folder

Is this
   a bug
   a limitation
   user error


In the transaction report, do you see a row with column headers, 
followed by line after line of transaction listings?  That is the table.


Try selecting the headers and the lines of date, doing an Edit… Copy, 
then opening a blank spreadsheet, and do an Edit… Paste. I expect that 
you will see the headers and the lines of the transaction report in the 
spreadsheet.


This is not very well documented, but have a look at the /GnuCash 
Manual/, section 9.3.1.3. *Transaction Report* 
<https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=help>. It says,


*Table for Exporting*: Formats the table for cut & paste exporting 
with extra cells


The manual does not say what "the table" is, but I understand it to mean 
the list of transactions itself.


Does this work for you?

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Dealing with mutual funds

2024-10-20 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Boniforti:

On 2024-10-20 04:08, Boniforti Flavio wrote:

Hi all.

I'd like to get some suggestions/guidance and eventually validate if my way
of doing this is correct.
Congratulations on making more and more use of GnuCash. From your 
questions and the answers I see on this list, it is clear that you are 
making good progress.

I've put some money into IBKR (CHF) which I then ...[details left out]
... how should I proceed to enter the various transactions, so that it
finally reflects the actual status (some CHF Cash, come USD Cash and the
rest in VT)?...
And how do I deal with dividends? Should I add another sub-account for the
dividends? I automatically reinvest dividends in VT - how to deal with this?...
Have you read GnuCash's /Tutorial and Concepts Guide/ 
? Especially 
Chapter 9, *Investments*, which has sections like "Setup Investment 
Portfolio", "Buying Shares", and "Dividends"?

I know it's a bunch of questions, but maybe some kind soul will be able to
help me walking through this :-)


In general, when asking a question like this, it is good to first ask 
yourself, "Self, have I checked what GnuCash's /Tutorial and Concepts 
Guide/ and its /Manual/ have to say about this? And, have I searched for 
this topic on the GnuCash wiki?" Many kind souls have spent a lot of 
time helping in advance by writing things down.


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Re: [GNC] What files in my in my business folder need to be backed up?

2024-10-12 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Dan:

On 2024-10-12 09:49, Dan a1TNC wrote:

What files in my in my business folder  need to be backed up?

I'm running my Gnu Cash on a windows machine which have to be stored on the
local drive. Backing up the needed files in case of computer failure is
always a good practice. I have been learning how to use GnuC and found the
files there are better than 100 files for 4 days of use. Will the last Text
file and the last "GNUCash Financial Data" file be all I need to copy to a
cloud? Or do I need to copy all of them?


Welcome to GnuCash!  I hope it turns out to be very useful for you.

A good first stop for answering your question is the /GnuCash Tutorial 
and Guide/ <https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>, 
section 2.5. *Backing Up and Recovering Data*.


In fact, if you are new to GnuCash and have not yet read all the way 
through the Tutorial and Guide, now might be a good time to.


You might also find the GnuCash wiki article, *Backup* 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Backup>, to be useful also. That article 
will refer you to a second, *Configuration Locations* 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Configuration_Locations>, which will also 
help you know where your customisations are stored, so that you can 
include them in your backup.


Once you have read that, if you still have questions, come on back to 
the list and ask another question.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Backup of Gnucash file shows incorrect reconciliation results

2024-10-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, John:

On 2024-09-30 10:45, John Dzielski wrote:

Hi,
  I have been using GnuCash for many years.  I am not a sophisticated user, 
and primarily use it to keep track of my checking account.  I reconcile 
monthly, and once every few years I’m off by a few cents or dollars.  Today I 
reconciled the account and I was off by 70.10.  I unchecked every entry and 
stared at it for a while.  I think I may have exited reconciling, but not 
completed.  There were many c’s in the reconcile column.  I stared at the 
reconciliation for a while and found that there were two entries for 70.10.  I 
deleted one, and repeated the reconciliation.  I am not off by over $11,000.  I 
keep track of my Accounts.gnucash file with git, so I can recover the previous 
version from 2 weeks ago.  When I open that file, I see no c’s in the reconcile 
column.  When I repeat the reconciliation process, I am still getting an 
$11,000 error.  It seems something is being remembered.  I found some on-line 
threads that suggest that the previous balance is not correct, and that makes 
sense, but I don’t want to do something like that without some understanding of 
what happened.
 Can anybody tell me what might have happened and point me to a resource on 
how to fix it?  Thank you, John.


I have trouble with reconciliation sometimes also.  So far it has been 
100% due to my own errors. Sometimes, I have had a hard time seeing my 
errors because I kept misreading a number, or not noticing an extra 
entry, or not noticing that something was debit instead of credit. So, I 
am happy to offer some suggestions. I am afraid they may sound 
annoyingly like, "go back to basics and be very deliberate".


1. Read again the /Tutorial and Concepts Guide/, section 2.9.4. 
*Reconciliation* 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-reconcile1>. 
Be sure you understand exactly what GnuCash means by reconciliation. Are 
there details in the Note: and Warning: paragraphs that help?


2. Read again the /GnuCash Manual/, section 4.5. *Reconcile Window* 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/gui-reconcile.html>. 
Again, be sure you understand that GnuCash means.


3. Remember that reconciliation is checking your records against the 
bank's records. Are you doing reconciliation bank statement by bank 
statement?


4. Remember that GnuCash wants you to start reconciliation with your 
bank account's very first statement, and proceed forward in time, 
without gaps. GnuCash includes all the account's reconciled transactions 
since the beginning of time in reconciliation's "previous balance". It 
sounds like you have been very diligent. Have you been 100% diligent?  
An unreconciled transaction before the beginning of the current bank 
statement's period can mess everything up.


5. Be sure to check that the beginning balance of the GnuCash 
reconciliation matches the beginning balance on the bank statement. If 
the opening balances differ, the closing balances surely will also differ.


6. Be careful that each deposit into the bank account is matched to a 
GnuCash transaction on the left side of the reconciliation window, and 
each withdrawal is matched to the right side. If you have a $5,500 
transaction which is in GnuCash as a withdrawal but in the bank 
statement as a deposit, that will add up to an $11,000 error.


Does any of that help?

Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] /unable to find Tutorial

2024-09-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Noel:

On 2024-09-28 15:14, Noel Lackey wrote:

Hi,
I am brand new to Gnucash and when I click on Tutorial I get Document not
found, could somebody point me to the tutorial?


Welcome to GnuCash! I hope you make it work well for you.

Others have pointed you to the links to the tutorial, via 
<https://gnucash.org/> and via search engines.


I am interested in, "when I click on Tutorial I get Document not found". 
It makes me wonder if there is a broken link somewhere. Where exactly is 
the Tutorial thing which you click on?  Is it on a web page? Inside the 
GnuCash app? If the app, what version, and on what OS?


Best regards,
     —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Migrating from Linux to Windows

2024-09-27 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-09-27 13:23, Phil Wolff via gnucash-user wrote:


I'm getting ready to migrate an existing Linux gnucash installation to
Windows 11. Is there documentation somewhere that tells me which data
files I need to move and where in Windows to put them?


Why yes there is.  There is a Frequently Asked Questions page on the 
GnuCash wiki <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ>. Take a look at the 
answer to, "Q: I just got a new computer. What should I copy over from 
my old one?" <_What_should_I_copy_over_from_my_old_one>.


Feel free to ask follow-up questions here for details the FAQ is unclear 
about. And, consider improving the FAQ's answers based on what you learn.


Good luck with the migration!
  —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] "Help"

2024-09-21 Thread Jim DeLaHunt



On 2024-09-21 18:14, Chris Miller via gnucash-user wrote:

Hi Folks,

I have installed "gnucash-docs", but there seems to be no benefit. Before I installed "gnucash-doc", "man 
gnucash" gave me a short, one page set of instructions and this did not change. I find I have /usr/share/doc/gnucash-docs/ but there 
are four files there and no manual pages. When I invoke "Help" from the application, I get generic Linux "Help" topics, 
but -- importantly -- no gnucash "Help".

Can anybody give me "Help"? (Ha! Geeze! Sometimes I just crack myself up!)

Thanks for the help,


Sure! Glad to help.

On 2024-09-21 18:14, Chris Miller via gnucash-user wrote:


I have installed "gnucash-docs"


What exactly did you install, and how?  Did you install a flatpack 
package named "gnucash-docs"? Something via apt-get? MacPorts port 
"gnucash-docs" on macOS?  One of the downloadable documentation files 
from <https://gnucash.org/docs.phtml>?


If it was the MacPorts port "gnucash-docs", this command will explain 
what is in the package and how to get to it:


% port info gnucash-docs
gnucash-docs @5.8 (gnome, x11)
Description:  GnuCash is a personal and small-business 
financial-accounting software, freely licensed under the GNU GPL. 
Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows 
you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and 
intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional 
accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports. 
This package contains (1) the user manual and (2) the Tutorial And 
Concepts Guide. Both are available through yelp, the gnome help browser, 
and an HTML copy is installed in /opt/local/share/doc/gnucash.


So, try "yelp, the gnome help browser", and try pointing your web 
browser to /opt/local/share/doc/gnucash .


And this command will list the storage locations of 10 index.html files 
which are the starting points for two documents in five languages each:


% port contents gnucash-docs | grep index.html

Does that answer your question?

 —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Database storage

2024-09-20 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Chris:

On 2024-09-20 06:32, Chris Miller via gnucash-user wrote:

Hi Jim,

Beware of confusion: the word "transaction" is already used on this list
to mean an "accounting record of an exchange of value". But I suspect
that here you use the word "transaction" to mean a "controlled and
reliable change to data stored in a database".

Yes. They are similar. Both represent "atomic" updates, meaning "all or
nothing".

But your question, to which my paragraph above is a reply, was, "Are
transactions implemented?" In the context of GnuCash, the difference
between these two meanings of the word "transaction" matters a lot.

(And does the accounting meaning of "transaction" really contain the
implication of "atomic"? I suspect not, but I am not an accountant.)

* Are transactions implemented? -- Let's assume, "Yes."

Let's assume, "No." (-: Apparently SQLite represent zero improvement over the
flat file storage.

Is there a way to update backing store anytime I make a change, and not
periodically? It seems like leaving updates lying around in memory is a good
way to lose updates when the dog pulls the plug out of the wall.

Yes. The GnuCash application's "Save" toolbar button and menu item
update backing store.

On 2024-09-20 07:29, Chris Miller wrote:
Oh! Do I understand the GnuCash parses the data and stores it in
database tables? --- like one table for each account? Or are all the
rows going to be the same with each row being an accounting
transaction "acct 1 $X.XX acct 2 -$X.XX"? What about "splits"?

To learn about the database structure which GnuCash uses, here are some
good places to start reading:

* <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/SQL>. Last updated April 2024, and
may well be out of date in places, but also may well be helpful for
the most part.
* <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/GnuCash_SQL_Examples>. Last updated
October 2022. Same cautions apply.
* <https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/tree/stable/libgnucash/backend/sql>.
Part of the GnuCash source code related to database storage.

While we are at it, here are some FAQ entries relevant to this thread,
which have not yet been cited:

"Q: Can I use GnuCash with multiple users? Maybe via the SQL backend? A:
That depends on what you mean exactly.…"

<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Can_I_use_GnuCash_with_multiple_users.3F_Maybe_via_the_SQL_backend.3F>

"SQL Database. Q: Is there a database backend?…"
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#SQL_Database>

Might I suggest, as you explore the SQL structures you find in your
GnuCash book database, you make corrections to parts of the Wiki pages
which are wrong? Help the next person who asks the same questions.

Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Database storage

2024-09-20 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Chris:

On 2024-09-19 09:27, Chris Miller via gnucash-user wrote:

I had already come to the same conclusion. And I have also already posed 
questions to myself:

 * Does SQLite support transactions? -- Yes.
Beware of confusion: the word "transaction" is already used on this list 
to mean an "accounting record of an exchange of value". But I suspect 
that here you use the word "transaction" to mean a "controlled and 
reliable change to data stored in a database".

 * Are transactions implemented? -- Let's assume, "Yes."


I think you mean, does GnuCash store each "accounting record of an 
exchange of value" entry via a "controlled and reliable change to data 
stored in a database"?


What people who know GnuCash's use of data backends are trying to 
explain here is that the answer is "no".


If you have GnuCash set up to store data in a SQLite or PostgreSQL 
database, and you start the GnuCash program, GnuCash performs a few 
controlled and reliable reads of data stored in a database, to get all 
the information in the book into memory. Then when you tell GnuCash to 
store a single "accounting record of an exchange of value" entry, 
GnuCash updates the data it has in memory. In simple terms, it does not 
make any change to data stored in the database at that moment.  When you 
tell GnuCash to save the book, then it makes a few controlled and 
reliable changes to data stored in a database so that the information in 
memory is stored in the database.


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Re: [GNC] Database storage

2024-09-18 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Chris,

On 2024-09-18 18:32, Chris Miller via gnucash-user wrote:


Is there support for database storage? I see reference to sqlite3,
PostgreSQL, and MySQL. Sqlite3 is obviously supported, since I can
simply save my content as sqlite3 in preference to XML, but I'd really
like to use either PostgreSQL or MySQL, because, that makes GnuCash
client server, and probably lets me run on distributed client machines.
If GnuCash can communicate with a database, it probably doesn't matter
where the database is.

What is the authoritative position for configuring database storage?
Where are the instructions about how to do it?


Have a look at the GnuCash "Tutorial and Concepts Guide" 
. See 
especially section 2.4. "Storing your financial data".


Since you mention "probably lets me run on distributed client machines", 
take especial note of the warning,


Use of a SQL back end for storage implies to many that GnuCash has 
fully implemented DBMS features, including multi-user and incremental 
data manipulation. However, GnuCash does not currently implement these 
features, although it is a long term goal of the development team.
In other words, if you have GnuCash store data in a database, GnuCash 
reads all its data out of the database when it starts, and writes all 
the data back when it stops. It does not write and commit each 
transaction as it goes.


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Re: [GNC] Credit cards - how to deal with those?

2024-09-18 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-09-18 14:43, Boniforti Flavio wrote:

... and another question from a noob: how to deal with credit card
transactions?


Fortunately, there is a GnuCash "Tutorial and Concepts Guide" 
<https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>. Chapter 7 is 
all about credit cards.


Have you given that a read?  Check what it has to say, and then come 
back with further questions.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] [newbie] how to treat a gift?

2024-09-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-09-03 14:54, Kalpesh Patel wrote:


Couldn't one can elect to track paycheck by net rather than gross?


This is a worthwhile question. You have already received two correct 
answers. Let me try to rise up a level, then say the same thing a 
different way.


You should answer the question, what are you trying to track? GnuCash is 
a tool for doing accounting. Accounting is the tracking of value. What 
value do you want to track? What information do you want to have?


Do you want to be able to catch errors in your bank statement more 
easily? That is one possible goal.


Do you want to be able to match your paycheque and tax withholdings to 
your tax slips when you prepare your income tax return for the year?  
That is a second possible goal.


Do the laws in your area require you to report the financial performance 
of your business according to certain accounting standards?  That is a 
third possible goal.


It is good to be clear about your goals, because it will frequently help 
you answer questions like, how do I enter this transaction in my books?


If you only want to catch errors in bank statements, then maybe tracking 
paycheque by net is sufficient. If you want to match total pay, and 
total withheld taxes of various kinds, to your tax slips at the end of 
the year, then maybe you should track your paycheque by gross with 
splits to reflect the various withholdings. If you want to comply with 
financial reporting rules, then that makes further requirements on your 
bookkeeping.


You might find that you would benefit from advice which is based on a 
solid knowledge of your situation, the regulations to which you are 
subject, and the principles of accounting. Accountants can be a good 
source of that advice. Maybe you will have to pay them for that advice. 
Accounting textbooks can also help you understand principles, which you 
can then apply to your own situation.


So:

1. What are your goals for the information tracking you do? That is for
   you to answer.
2. Have you done enough self-study of accounting to understand what
   accounting principles will help you achieve your goals? That is for
   you to study.
3. Are accurate, customised answers valuable to you?  Pay an accountant
   to answer some questions.
4. Are you unclear about how to use GnuCash to apply those accounting
   principles?  Ask this list, perhaps we can help.

Does that answer your question?

Best regards,
     —Jim DeLaHunt



-Original Message-
From: Gyle McCollam  
Sent: Tuesday, September 03, 2024 3:27 PM

To: David Warren; Boniforti Flavio
Cc:gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] [newbie] how to treat a gift?

Don't forget on the paycheck, you also have to debit all the withholding 
accounts as well. Your salary is more than what cited to your checking out 
savings account.



Sent from Samsung Galaxy smartphone.



 Original message 
From: David Warren
Date: 9/3/24 3:21 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Boniforti Flavio
Cc:gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] [newbie] how to treat a gift?

Hi.  EVERY Gnucash entry is DOUBLE ENTRY.

But you've answered your own question.

Debit Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account for $100 Credit the income account 
of your choice but Income:Gifts Received is exactly what I would use too!

For Salary, Debit Checking Account, Credit Income:Salary Received.

On Tue, Sep 3, 2024 at 2:22 PM Boniforti Flavio
wrote:


Hi all.
I've received 100 bucks from a relative as a gift, which he sent to me
via bank wire transfer.
In my GnuCash accounts I do have one called "Income:Gifts Received"
and I also of course have the "Assets:Current Assets:Checking
Account", where the money from the gift finally landed.

How should I proceed to register this gift I received? I don't see any
reason to do a "double-entry", because the money is not coming from
one of my accounts - it's just getting INTO one of my accounts from external...
Same question for my salary, of course.

Thanks for your help,
F.

https://www.instagram.com/boniforti_music
https://soundcloud.com/boniforti_music
https://bonny-j.bandcamp.com
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Re: [GNC] Python bindings issue

2024-08-14 Thread Jim DeLaHunt



On 2024-08-14 10:56, Gere Kiss Zsolt wrote:

Hi Jim,

Did you succeed to import the Python bindings with  `import gnucash`?

On Wed, 14 Aug 2024 at 02:16, Jim DeLaHunt  wrote:

That has succeeded sometimes, and failed sometimes, but presently it
succeeds.


Could this happen because the book was sometimes locked ? (just a question)


Not that I observed. When it failed, I think it was because of bugs in 
the GnuCash build process, either in MacPorts or when I built GnuCash 
from source.



Thanks for the code bits. You helped me in the way that it made clear that
gnucash bindings work with Python 3.11. So I decided to give it a try.

As I said, I have Ubuntu 22.04 on my system. This did not seem old to me,
but it is ~2 years old, and the last LTS version is 24.04. That comes with
Python 3.12 and packaged with GnuCash 5.5. I tried those and voila: *it
worked*!


The obvious next question: when you installed the `python3-gnucash` 
package on your system, where exactly did it install its .py files?


On MacPorts, I can find out where the `gnucash` port installed its 
Python files by means of:


% port contents gnucash | grep Python
  
/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.11/lib/python3.11/site-packages/gnucash/__init__.py
  ...[other paths elided]...

The `Versions/3.11` part of the path is a clue that the `gnucash` port 
installed its Python files in Python 3.11, rather than the other several 
versions of Python on my system.


Maybe there is a similar command you can use on your system to find out 
a) if you have multiple copies of the Python interpreter on your 
computer, b) if you have multiple locations where Python modules could 
be installed, and c) into which location the `python3-gnucash` package 
actually installed its Python modules.


I'm glad to hear that you found a combination which worked.

Best regards,
     —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Python bindings issue

2024-08-13 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

On 2024-08-13 15:14, Gere Kiss Zsolt wrote:

Hi Jim,

and thanks for the response.

> I too am someone who has used GnuCash from the UI from several years,
and is now starting to try using the Python bindings. I am on macOS
rather than Linux.

Did you succeed to import the Python bindings with  `import gnucash`?

That has succeeded sometimes, and failed sometimes, but presently it 
succeeds. (Using the MacPorts distribution of gnucash @5.8_1+docs on macOS.)

I can also, for example, add a security to a book file by using the 
GncCommodity() class. This sample code worked for me:

import gnucash
FILE = "file://./test_book_1.gnucash"
session = gnucash.gnucash_core.Session(FILE)
book = session.book
comms = book.get_table()
qqq = gnucash.gnucash_core.GncCommodity(book, 'QQQ_fullname', 'MySecurityType', 
'QQQ', 'QQQ_qsip', 100)
comms.insert(qqq)
session.end()
session.destroy()
quit()

>  Suggestion 1: is the OS package python3-gnucash installed on your 
system?

Sure, as I mentioned:

Other gnucash related OS packages:

  * gnucash-common
  * gnucash-docs
  * *python3-gnucash*

Sorry, I guess I did not follow your meaning. I read you as saying that 
those packages, but not that those packages were actually installed on 
your system.

> Suggestion 2: what info about python3-gnucash does the apt system
display (in the same way it displayed information about the package
gnucash)?

Package: python3-gnucash
Version: 1:4.8-1build2
State: installed
Section: universe/python
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers 
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0), libpython3.10 (>= 
3.10.0), python3 (< 3.11), python3 (>= 3.10~), python3:any

As you can see from Depends, it installs bindings for python3 >= 3.10~ 
< 3.11.
3.10.12 is the version of Python3 installed on my OS, so this should 
conform (no wonder, since it is an OS package). Maybe some other 
libraries (like libc6?, etc.) are incompatible between gnucash 
and python3-gnucash?
You have reached the limit of my knowledge, especially concerning 
GnuCash on Linux. Sorry.

Can you do `import gnucash` from a Python REPL?
Again, yes.  Thus you can be confident that it has worked for someone 
somewhere at some time.

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Python bindings issue

2024-08-13 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Zsolt:

On 2024-08-13 10:26, Gere Kiss Zsolt wrote:

Hi all,

I've been using GnuCash for several years now and I'd like to try some
Python bindings to enter transactions programmatically.

...[details elided]...

Python 3.10.12 (main, Jul 29 2024, 16:56:48) [GCC 11.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

import gnucash

* 11:41:04 ERROR  g_variant_unref: assertion 'value != NULL' failed

Can somebody give me a clue about what I can do about it?


I too am someone who has used GnuCash from the UI from several years, 
and is now starting to try using the Python bindings. I am on macOS 
rather than Linux. Since I am just starting out, maybe my help is just 
the blind leading the blind.


Suggestion 1: is the OS package python3-gnucash installed on your system?

Suggestion 2: what info about python3-gnucash does the apt system 
display (in the same way it displayed information about the package 
gnucash)?


Suggestion 3: did the package python3-gnucash install libraries for a 
specific version of Python, or for all versions of Python? (In my 
situation, using the MacPorts distribution on MacOS, the package gnucash 
installs the Python bindings specifically for Python 3.11, not for all 
versions.)


Do those answers shed any light for you?

Best regards,  —Jim DeLaHunt
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[GNC] Fonts blurrier on upgrade to GnuCash 5.8-2 on macOS Sonoma 14.6.1?

2024-08-11 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, folks:

I just upgraded from GnuCash 5.6 to GnuCash 5.8-2 (arm64), shortly after 
upgrading macOS from 12.7.6 Monterey to 14.6.1 Sonoma, on an arm64 
machine. On running GnuCash 5.8-2 for the first time, I noticed that 
almost all the text on the main GnuCash window looked more cramped and 
blurrier. This applies to the text under the icons in the toolbar, to 
the text in the account tabs, to the text in the registers, and to the 
text in the reports.


Has anyone else noticed this? Do you have suggestions on how I might 
improve this?


I briefly ran my existing GnuCash 5.6 installation on macOS 14.6.1 
Sonoma after the OS upgrade, and the text looked crisp as expected. Thus 
I suspect that GnuCash 5.8-2 set the font or size in some way which was 
less effective in the Sonoma environment than GnuCash 5.6 settings were 
in the Sonoma or Monterey environments.


One suggestion from the wiki, 
, is to use 
the GTK Inspector to see what fonts and sizes GnuCash is actually 
getting. I was able to invoke the GTK Inspector by running the GnuCash 
app from the Terminal:


% GTK_DEBUG=interactive /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/Gnucash

When GnuCash ran this way, the text looked different, and better. It was 
larger, less cramped, crisper, not blurry.


The GTK Inspector says that the font used was ".AppleSystemUIFont 
Regular 12".


When I quit GnuCash, then ran it a third time the conventional way, the 
text was the same smaller size as the first time, but somehow my 
subjective impression was that it was clearer, less fuzzy, less cramped.


When I compared a screen shot of a register's text when GnuCash was run 
normally, and run with GTK_DEBUG=interactive from the command line, the 
latter clearly had taller, wider, and better-separated characters. A 
screen shot of the text from the third, conventional run, had exactly 
the same text size and spacing as the first run. All three sets of text 
were rendered with anti-aliasing.


P.S. the GTK Inspector documentation says that one can enable it using 
"the Control + Shift + I or Control + Shift + D keyboard shortcuts", but 
those key combinations gave me no response. Neither did Command + Shift 
+ I or Command + Shift + D. Can one enable the GTK Inspector from the 
macOS editions of GnuCash 5.8-2?



Any suggestions?

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Re: [GNC] Move working files

2024-08-10 Thread Jim DeLaHunt




On 2024-08-10 11:11, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) wrote:

On 2024-08-10 09:45, R Losey wrote:

I haven't done a lot of customization with my GnuCash system.

My data file - MyData.gnucash is in the same directory as what I call the
"working" files -- the MyData.gnucash..gnucash and the
MyData.gnucash..log files.

Is there some way that these working files can be created in a separate
directory?

No. It's been discussed many times, and I assume someone has entered an
enhancement request, but there's been no change

Consider reading, and following, this enhancement request:
"Can we write log files into separate directory?"


For tips on enhancement requests in GnuCash, see 
.
For tips on using "Bugzilla" at bugs.gnucash.org, see 
.

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Re: [GNC] New User on MacBook

2024-08-04 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-08-04 12:48, Sumar Patel via gnucash-user wrote:


Hi I am new to GnuCash and am trying to save the data file to DropBox but can’t 
see DropBox when I click “SaveAs” button; all I see are locations on the local 
computer. When I go to Finder I do see DropBox. How do I save the data file to 
DropBox when I can’t see DropBox when I click “SaveAs” button?


Hello, Sumar, and welcome to GnuCash!

I also use GnuCash on macOS. GnuCash is based on a toolkit called Gtk, 
which displays macOS special folders differently from most mac apps. 
Generally what works for me is to navigate to the path in a file system 
where the special folder resides.


In your case, I bet it will help you to find the file system path to 
your Dropbox folder. Fortunately, Dropbox has published a help page, 
"How to find the Dropbox folder on a computer" 
<https://help.dropbox.com/installs/locate-dropbox-folder>. The relevant 
part seems to be:


This article describes how to find the Dropbox folder on a computer 
once you’ve downloaded the Dropbox desktop app…, and logged in.…


To open your Dropbox desktop app preferences:

 1.     Click the Dropbox icon in your …menu bar (Mac).
 2.     Click your avatar (profile picture or initials) in the
top-right corner.
 3.     Click Preferences.
 4.     Click Sync in the left sidebar.
 5.     Scroll to the Dropbox folder location section.
 6.     [Read] the path displayed [which is] your Dropbox folder location.

Then in GnuCash, use the File… Open or File… Save as commands. A File 
Open or File Save dialogue opens.


In the left pane of the dialogue, click Home. The ribbon across the top 
displays a Mac icon, then Users, then your username. The pane on the 
lower right displays the folders in your home directory.


The path given in step 6 probably starts with '/Users/your_username/'. 
Follow through the remainder of the path, '/'-separated piece by piece. 
For each piece, click on the corresponding folder icon in the GnuCash 
dialogue. The dialogue redraws the ribbon across the top and the folders 
in the lower right to display the new folder.


Does that answer your question?

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Startup Options OSX?

2024-07-04 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Jim:

On 2024-07-04 13:36, Jim Johnson wrote:

Hi!

I just started using GnuCash, and thanks to the new 5.71 version I was able to 
import 15 years of Quicken registers successfully, so I am good to go.

Welcome to GnuCash! I'm glad to hear that worked for you.

Before I did that import, about three weeks ago I started a new GnuCash 
register of just last year for my accountant’s use.

Now, going through all of my GnuCash documents I can’t find that one register 
anymore, just the import.

I have been using Time Machine to back up my MacBook

Is there a safe way to start GnuCash (like option-open or something?) and see 
if one of my old OSX Time Machine GnuCash backed-up documents has it?


The GnuCash app for macOS has a File menu, with an Open… entry. This 
works exactly as does with most applications — it lets GnuCash open 
another book (document).


You can explore other documents by:

1. Using Finder, find the location in your mac's storage where the
   current file is stored. It will have a filename ending in '.gnucash'.
2. Note its size in bytes and its modification date and time. Make a
   copy of that file, and move the copy to a safe and known location.
3. Using Finder, find the location where the older files are stored.
1. Some backup files will be stored in the same directory as your
   current file. They will have file names ending in numeric
   date-time codes sandwiched between '.gnucash', e.g.
   …'.gnucash.20240703205228.gnucash'
2. Your GnuCash register from three weeks ago, for your
   accountant's use, might have a different file name which ends
   in '.gnucash', and might be in a different location.
4. Run the GnuCash app. Your currrent GnuCash book with the massive
   import opens.
5. Use the File… Open… menu entry. A standard File Open dialogue appears.
6. Navigate to the older files you found in steps 3.1 and 3.2. Open one
   of them. The old book version opens.
7. See if this is the content you want. If it is, take whatever steps
   you want to take. You did not specify that part. Maybe you want to
   export the old transactions, so that you can import them into your
   current book.
8. If you have not found the content you want, repeat steps 5. through
   8. until you find it.
9. Quit the GnuCash app.
10. Using Finder, return to the location in your mac's storage where the
   current file is stored.
11. If you are certain that the current file is unchanged what it was in
   step 2, then you can safely delete the copy you made. If it has been
   change, or if you are not certain, restore your original file as
   follows:
1. Rename your current file to change the ending '.gnucash' to
   something like '.before_restore.gnucash'.
2. Move the copy you made of your current file into the current
   directory, and be sure it has the same name as your current file
   had in step 2.
12. Run the GnuCash app. Whichever past GnuCash book you last examined
   opens.
13. Use the File… Open… menu entry. A standard File Open dialogue appears.
14. Navigate to your current file. Open it. Your current book opens.
15. You have now finished getting back to your current book (document)
   after exploring older documents.


I don’t want to lose my new massive import, but I’d like to find that older 
register.


GnuCash does not treat its book files exactly like a spreadsheet or word 
processing application treats their documents, but some of the same 
principles apply.  GnuCash can open and work with different documents in 
sequence (though not multiple at the same time). It benefits you to know 
where your data is stored. It benefits you to keep track of old 
documents which you might want to revisit sometime.


Does this help?

  —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Imbalance Records with zero amounts

2024-06-26 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-06-26 08:20, Joseph Hesse wrote:


Hello,

I have several consecutive records in my imbalance account where the 
amounts in the deposit and withdrawal columns are both zero (blank). … 
This seems like a bug or an error in my bookkeeping.  I am using the 
latest version of gnucash.


I suspect that this might be the result of clumsy data entry combined 
with clumsy but well-meaning attempts by GnuCash to be helpful.


As you know, double-entry bookkeeping requires every transaction to be 
balanced, that is, to have its credits equal its debits. GnuCash 
enforces this requirement, but only when it saves a transaction, not 
while you are actively entering or editing the transaction. But, it is 
possible to tell GnuCash to save a transaction when you don't mean to, 
while you think you are still doing data entry.


If you enter some splits of a transaction, but you have not yet entered 
all the splits or balanced them, and you inadvertently tell GnuCash to 
save the transaction, GnuCash will see that the transaction is not 
balanced. It will create a split to a special "Imbalance" account with 
an amount that exactly balances the transaction. Then it finishes saving 
the transaction. If you then continue your data entry, GnuCash 
interprets that as editing an existing transaction, and lets you 
continue. When you finish entering and balancing all the splits, the 
transaction is now imbalanced again, due precisely to that split which 
GnuCash added, to the "Imbalance" account. GnuCash changes the debit and 
credit amounts of that split to balance the transaction.  The result is 
that the debit and credit amounts of that split become zero.  You might 
think that GnuCash should remove that split, but it does not do so.


I make it a policy to not allow any entries in the Imbalance account(s) 
in my book. When I find one with non-zero debit or credit amounts, that 
indicates an error in my transaction. I go to the transaction and fix 
the error. When I find an entry in the Imalance account with zero debit 
and credit amounts, I go to that transaction and delete the split with 
the "Imbalance" account.


Does that explain what you are seeing?  Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Need help with eBay - tagging multiple sales into one payout hitting checking two business days later

2024-05-31 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bruce:

Welcome to GnuCash, congratulations on the eBay business, and I hope it 
goes well for you.


It sounds like your question is not about GnuCash, it is about 
accounting. Once you know how the information should get tracked as an 
accounting matter, it will be straightforward to explain how to record 
that information using GnuCash as the recording tool.


Do you have an accountant advising you?  If so, ask them for their 
advice about how to record this information.  Have you read an 
introductory accounting textbook?  If not, maybe this is a good time for 
that learning.


You say,

…Under Income I have eBay Transactions (and I want this to reflect the 
eBay All Transactions page).…


From what you describe, this sounds to me like it should be an Asset, 
not Income. It is something like Accounts Receivable from eBay. The eBay 
All Transactions page as you describe it lists a sale, where eBay starts 
to owe you money, then a deduction for cost of sales, where eBay reduces 
the amount they owe you, then a payout, where eBay reduces what they owe 
you to zero by sending you money. So: it sounds to me like the type of 
this account should be Asset, not Income.


…Things get way out of hand when I make multiple sales in one day. I 
would enter a split transaction for every sale, so if I had four 
transaction – I would show four split transactions made up of the 
sale, the final value fees, and the shipping label. However – I would 
only have one payout. So if I take the income from the sale and post 
it directly to checking, I end up adding 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4, … to 
the front of the description field. Then when looking at my checking 
account – I would need to add together each individual transaction to 
equal my payout.…
It sounds like you should be entering only one transaction from the eBay 
Accounts Receivable account to the chequing account, to correspond to 
the one payout per day. There is no need to make a transaction between 
these two accounts for each eBay sale. The amount of the one daily 
transaction equals the amount of the eBay payout, and the amount which 
arrives in your chequing account.


Note that the balance in your eBay Accounts Receivable account starts at 
zero each day, increases as eBay makes sales, decreases as eBay charges 
you fees, then drop to zero when eBay makes the daily payout.


…When I look at my checking account, I can match it by the dollar 
amount, but since payouts post in two business days, the date does not 
match up. But it is simple enough to figure out.… 
In my finances, it is completely normal for a transaction to take 
multiple days to play out, so the statements from various parties to the 
transaction will have different dates.  For instance, I pay a store by 
credit card on May 1st. When I get my credit card statement, it has two 
dates for the transaction: transaction date, and posting date.  The 
transaction date is May 3rd, because the store did not report the sale 
to the credit card company for a little while.  The posting date is May 
4th, because the credit card company also took a little time to process 
the transaction.


GnuCash only has one date field per transaction, so I choose one of 
those three transaction dates as the representative date to record in 
GnuCash.


It is possible to enter multiple GnuCash transactions to record the 
separate steps and the time delay in transactions, but I almost never 
find it worth the bother.


Does this answer your question?
  —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-05-31 10:25, Bruce Griffis wrote:
I’m looking for help in figuring out GnuCash for a small eBay 
reseller, basically selling items from home, but occasionally 
purchasing an item for resale. I’m looking at this from the 
perspective of viewing sales from the My eBay / Selling / Payments / 
Total Sales page.



Under Assets, I have Checking account, Savings account, Cash account 
and eBay Inventory account (I get that GnuCash does not support 
inventory – I just build this using a CSV export from Libre Office 
Calc). Under liabilities I have a secured credit card.



Under Income I have eBay Transactions (and I want this to reflect the 
eBay All Transactions page). Under expenses I have eBay Final Value 
Fees, eBay Shipping Labels and eBay Refunds. I also have standard 
small business chart of accounts to support basics of purchasing 
boxes, bubble wrap, bubble mailers, tape, poly bags, …



When I look at making just one sale in a day, this approach works 
pretty well:


On eBay All Transactions I have one entry that gives Date, Description 
(the item that was sold),


Amount (this is gross amount), Fees (this is eBay Final Value fees), 
Net (the net amount I receive – if I pay shipping (offer free 
shipping), net gets reduced by my shipping label costs), Total Funds.



I then see a second transaction under All Transactions for the 
purchase of the shipping label. This includes Date, Description, 
Amount and Net. Since Total Amount is the amount

Re: [GNC] Adding ASSETS & LIABILITIES to sub accounts

2024-05-30 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Luis:

Welcome to GnuCash! You ask a good question.

On 2024-05-30 01:31, Luis Sini wrote:

TL;DR
+
I would like to add "ASSETS" and "LIABILITIES" account types as
sub-accounts but GnuCash only allows it if they are "Top Level Accounts"
+
Hello to everyone,
I make money personally, I own a couple of properties, and I also design
and manufacture audio devices. These are basically different entities, and
I know that I can create a separate GnuCash file for each one of those
ventures. But, I wanted to create 1 GnuCash file that will allow me to have
a comprehensive view of all my financial activities while being able to
track each venture separately.

I've gone ahead and created the following structure:

1. PERSONAL WORK
   1. INCOME
   2. EXPENSES
2. PROPERTIES
   1. PROPERTY A
  1. INCOME
  2. EXPENSES
   2. PROPERTY B
  1. INCOME
  2. EXPENSES
   3. AUDIO DEVICES
   1. INCOME
   2. EXPENSES

What I would like to do is add "ASSETS" and "LIABILITIES" sub-accounts to
"PERSONAL WORK" and each of the "PROPERTIES". Unfortunately, GnuCash only
allows me to assign sub-accounts types as either "Income" or "Expense"
unless the parent account is not set up as either Assets or Liability? I
can make an account an "Asset" or "Liability" if the account is a "Top
Level Account". Is there any way to get around this limitation?


I do not know a way around the limitation that GnuCash places on the 
types of accounts which can be children of various types of accounts, 
e.g. that an Asset account may not be a child of an Income or Expense 
account.


I face a similar situation with my own bookkeeping. I track assets, 
liabilities, income, and expenses, for my marriage's joint holdings, and 
my personal income, and my spouse's personal income, for my small 
business, and some real estate.  I let GnuCash insist that Assets, 
Liabilities, Equity, Income, and Expenses be top-level accounts. I 
divide into my various joint and personal and business divisions at the 
next level down.


Applying that to your example, your chart of accounts might be:

1. Assets
   1.A. Personal Assets
   1.B. Property Assets
     1.B.a. Property A Assets
     1.B.b. Property B Assets
   1.C. Audio Devices Assets
2. Equity
   2.A. Personal Equity
   2.B. Property Equity
 2.B.a. Property A Equity
 2.B.b. Property B Equity
   2.C. Audio Devices Equity
3. Expenses
   3.A. Personal Expenses
   3.B. Property Expenses
 3.B.a. Property A Expenses
 3.B.b. Property B Expenses
   3.C. Audio Devices Expenses
4. Income
   4.A. Personal Income
   4.B. Property Income
 4.B.a. Property A Income
 4.B.b. Property B Income
   4.C. Audio Devices Income
5. Liabilities
   5.A. Personal Income
   5.B. Property Income
 5.B.a. Property A Income
 5.B.b. Property B Income
   5.C. Audio Devices Income

I can imagine three objections you might have to this structure.

1. It is verbose. My structure has 30 lines, while yours has only 13 
lines (or 21 after you add Assets and Liabilities as you propose). I do 
not find that to be a problem. The only time I see all the accounts is 
in the Accounts tab, and most of the time most of the hierarchy is 
collapsed and hidden from view. When I want to enter an account name 
into a transaction, I type portions of the path of account names, and 
GnuCash gives me a menu of the few accounts which match those portions.


2. It doesn't let you report on a single subtree of the account and 
capture all the income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. I also do not 
find that to be a problem. GnuCash custom reports allow you to select 
which accounts to include in the reports. If you want a report for 
Property A, you can define a GnuCash custom report which includes 1.B.a. 
Property A Assets, 2.B.a. Property A Equity, 3.B.a. Property A Expenses, 
4.B.a. Property A Income, 5.B.a. Property A Income and all subaccounts 
of those five accounts.


3. You might not be sure which structure will work for you long-term. 
The good news is that GnuCash lets you move accounts from one parent to 
another within the Accounts tree (subject to its rules about which 
account types can be children of which account types), and all the 
transactions associated with that account follow the account to its new 
home.  You can do even pretty major restructuring of accounts as you go, 
and your records stay intact.


I hope this helps. Good luck with your bookkeeping!
   —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Cash in/cash out - debit/credit

2024-05-22 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-05-22 18:07, Tinker Books wrote:


  -How can I change the column headers to read DEBIT CREDIT intsead of CASH
IN/CASHOUT


This is covered in the /GnuCash Manual/, section 10.2.2. *Accounts:*

<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/set-prefs.html#prefs-accounts>

It is an application preference. The relevant checkbox is labelled "Use 
formal accounting labels".


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Transferring Gnu Cash Data to New Computer

2024-05-17 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Gary:

On 2024-05-15 18:07, Gary Slade wrote:

I need to transfer Gnu Cash data from my old Mac to my new Mac. How do I locate 
the data?

Regards,

Gary Slade
Pioneer, CA


In addition to the other answers, check out this entry in the GnuCash FAQ:

"Q: I just got a new computer. What should I copy over from my old one?"
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_I_just_got_a_new_computer._What_should_I_copy_over_from_my_old_one.3F>

The answer also refers you to the GnuCash wiki article "Backup".

If you have questions, having read that, you are welcome to post 
followup questions here.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Moving from GnuCash 4.8 to GnuCash 5.5 - any issues likely to bite me?

2024-05-11 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Chris:

On 2024-05-11 03:21, Chris Green wrote:

I am changing my Linux desktop computer from one running xubuntu 22.04
to one running xubuntu 24.04.  As a result of this the GnuCash version
will move from 4.8 to 5.5.

Are there likely to be any problems or should it 'just work'?  I'm
using GnuCash with a sqlite database.

I'm moving to new hardware so the old system will not disappear.


This FAQ is probably relevant for you:

"Can a new GnuCash release still read my old data file?"
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Can_a_new_GnuCash_release_still_read_my_old_data_file.3F>

If that leaves you with questions, feel free to ask this list again.

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Please address broken QIF import

2024-04-24 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-04-23 14:31, Yann Salmon via gnucash-user wrote:
Since there is, if I understand correctly, a fix to this major bug, I 
really think a 5.6.1 release would be helpful.… 

On 2024-04-24 15:24, Yann Salmon via gnucash-user wrote:
…the one thing I learned is : you do not break things, and if you do, 
you unbreak them as quickly as possible.…


…I would be interested to know the bigger picture that I am obviously 
missing in the decision not to publish a .1 that fixes a regression 
(especially on a stable release) and allows Otto Normaluser and his 
Grandma to quickly get back on their feet by simpling doing what they 
know and have been educated to do : upgrading their software. 


Oh, I think I can help you see the bigger picture.

Please run a report on your financial records in GnuCash. Look for all 
the payments you made to the GnuCash developers, in order to have the 
use of GnuCash software.  If your records are like mine, the total 
amount will be:


0.00 EUR (approximately 0.00 CAD, 0.00 USD, 0.00 CNY, at current 
exchange rates)


I suspect that the GnuCash team has spent at least double that amount, 
and applied it to making a 5.6.1 release. It was sufficient for them to 
reach 0% of the way to completion. (I am being sarcastic. I don't know 
the internals of the GnuCash project.)


Putting aside sarcasm, please remember that the GnuCash developers are 
volunteers. They are donating their time and expertise to develop 
GnuCash. There are not many of them. Yet they deliver regular releases, 
complete with bug fixes, and ever-increasing capabilities.  The 
appropriate tone to take with them is one of gratitude.


At the same time, the GnuCash developers have granted you a license to 
GnuCash's source code. You are permitted to see the source code, to 
diagnose the problem yourself, and to come up with a fix. If you wish, 
you can donate the fix back to the GnuCash developers. Or, you could 
make your own 5.6.1 release with the fix (but this is "forking", and you 
should give the new software a different name).  If you own skills do 
not extend to diagnosing and fixing the problem, you are free to hire a 
skilled software engineer, and have them diagnose, fix, and release a 
version of the software for you. If you want to pay the software 
engineer for an extended time, so that they can build up a relationship 
with the GnuCash developers, they might be able to take on the task of 
making bug-fix releases. It could be your contribution to GnuCash. 
Please, go right ahead!


However, you may discover that this costs you more in time and money 
than the 0.00 EUR which you have paid for GnuCash so far.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-04-24 15:24, Yann Salmon via gnucash-user wrote:

Hello,

Le 23/04/2024 à 23:48, David Carlson a écrit :

Sir,

In my experience most financial institutions that offer QIF exports 
also offer OFX format which will often go under a similar name.


Alas, a hundred times alas, not always. Not in France, at least. They 
should…


I was able, however, to use <https://github.com/georggrab/qif2ofx>. I 
had to reverse all transactions (which is easier to do in the QIF, 
btw) because my bank seems to directly produce a QIF for my point of 
view while GnuCash seems to expect a QIF with transactions from the 
bank's point of view, but that is another story.



If you need the QIF format then you will probably be stuck either 
waiting for the 5.7 windows release or reverting either to an earlier 
5 series or maybe even 4 series if you have an older Linux based 
machine as I do.


Even though the Gnucash team has been releasing new versions at a 
steady and formidable rythm of one every 3 to 4 months, that still 
makes 4 months of non-working QIF import — downgrading is really not a 
straightforward route as software managers, for good reasons, make 
upgrading software easy and downgrading it harder (and one would have 
to get the idea of doing so).


While I admit I am not and have never been trained to be a software 
project manager, I did write some (extremely) modest pieces of 
software that are used by some other people, and the one thing I 
learned is : you do not break things, and if you do, you unbreak them 
as quickly as possible.


People can be patient with a desired functionnality not being present 
yet, or even a new functionnality being buggy from its start, but not 
when something that had been working, and that they are thus using, 
stops working. It disrupts their workflow, it may mean that something 
they had to do by some date, and that they were expecting to do with 
the software, suddenly cannot be done as planned anymore : all in all, 
it makes the software look unreliable — if faults appear today, and 
are not fixed, then more and bigger faults could appear tomorrow. And 
I think this is especially true for a software like GnuCash that is 
important to users because it is usually great at doing important 
things

Re: [GNC] Use same transfer column info for identical description

2024-04-14 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Adrien, and welcome to MusicBrainz!

On 2024-04-14 13:03, Adrien Laveau wrote:

Hello community,

I uploaded 5 years worth of bank account transaction to gnu-cash.

I would like the apply the same transfer information to all the
transactions having the same description and keep applying it automatically
to all future transaction.


It sounds like you want to do two different things:

1. Change the details ("transfer column info") which you have already
   imported into your book file to match your desired contents.
2. Ensure that GnuCash uses your desired contents for future
   transactions which you enter into GnuCash using the "same description".

I don't have easy suggestions for #1, except to go through transactions 
one by one and correct them. It may be tedious, but you only have to do 
it once. (I have a difficult suggestion: to edit the GnuCash XML book 
file. This is dangerous but sometimes effective. It requires skills in 
working with XML and file formats.)


For #2, GnuCash automatically fills in the contents of a transaction by 
matching the Description text you type in to the most recent transaction 
with that same Description text. So, to get new transactions to match 
your desired content, first edit the most recent existing transaction 
with that description to match your desired content. Then, when you 
enter a new transaction, type in the same Description text, and let 
GnuCash fill in the content from the most recent transaction into your 
new transaction.


See the /GnuCash Manual/, section 6.2.1. *Entering Directly in the 
Register Window* 
 
for more information.


Do these future transactions happen one a predictable schedule? You 
might also find it useful to make Scheduled Transactions to enter 
them. See the /GnuCash Manual/, section 6.13. *Scheduling Transactions* 
 for 
more information on using scheduled transactions.




I found old topics about that saying it had to be done manually. Has it changed?


I am not sure which "old topics" you are referring to, nor what "it" you 
mean, which has to be done manually. Do you mean old messages to the 
gnucash-user list? It would help if you could link to the specific 
messages in the list archives 
.


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Re: [GNC] Split Transactions Version 5.6

2024-04-10 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Kevin:

> …this term was used to signify a single transaction, say from the
Checking Account, to two different categories, say Household and
Groceries. Is there a term for this in GnuCash and can it be done here?

Yes, and yes. The answers are in the /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts
Guide/, section 2.9 *Transactions* . Links are in the earlier message,
below. Once you have read that, if you have questions which the
documentation does not answer, I look forward to your clarification
questions here.

Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt

On 2024-04-10 16:11, Kevin Wilcoxon via gnucash-user wrote:
Thank you both for your responses. I see I have been using the term
"split transaction" wrong. I was using Ace Money where this term was
used to signify a single transaction, say from the Checking Account,
to two different categories, say Household and Groceries. Is there a
term for this in GnuCash and can it be done here?

Thanks Again
Kevin

On 4/10/24 12:43 PM, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

Welcome to GnuCash, Kevin!

In addition to Mark's helpful answer, I direct your attention to the
documentation. In particular, have another look at the /GnuCash
Tutorial and Concepts Guide/, section 2.9 *Transactions* .

Section 2.9.3 *Simple vs. Split Transactions*
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-registers-txntypes>
explains how to use the Split button to see multiple splits, and
shows an example of a multi-split transaction.

Section 2.9.2. *The Account Register*
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-register-oview>
explains how to use the View menu to select register styles, such as
"Auot-Split Ledger" or "Transaction Journal", to work with splits
more clearly.

Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt

On 2024-04-10 12:33, Mark at Lorimark wrote:

Hi Kevin,

(not an expert)

When you open the 'checking' register, and put in a transaction, you
assign that transaction to another account.

Example:
1. open 'checking'
2. enter an item
3. set the "Transfer" column to the proper account
a. electricity
b. phone
c. school taxes

You NOW have a "split". The "checking" account is on one side, the
"other" account is on the other side. That's a split!

If you want to make a 'multi-split' then there's a button in the
register that you can hit to show the 'splits'. When this view is
showing, then you can take that one check and assign it to multiple
other accounts to split it in multiple ways.

HTH

~mark petryk
~w:http://www.lorimarksolutions.com

On 4/10/24 14:26, Kevin Wilcoxon via gnucash-user wrote:
Newbie here. You're a very sophisticated group! I believe I have
mastered all the tasks I need in GnuCash 5.6 except creating split
transactions. I've tried searching the internet and following
instructions without sucess. Would some wise user please provide
simple and workable instructions to enter these split transactions,
or point me to where I can find them.

Thank you very much
Kevin Wilcoxon

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Re: [GNC] Split Transactions Version 5.6

2024-04-10 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Welcome to GnuCash, Kevin!

In addition to Mark's helpful answer, I direct your attention to the
documentation. In particular, have another look at the /GnuCash Tutorial
and Concepts Guide/, section 2.9 *Transactions* .

Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt

On 2024-04-10 12:33, Mark at Lorimark wrote:

Hi Kevin,

(not an expert)

When you open the 'checking' register, and put in a transaction, you
assign that transaction to another account.

Example:
1. open 'checking'
2. enter an item
3. set the "Transfer" column to the proper account
a. electricity
b. phone
c. school taxes

You NOW have a "split". The "checking" account is on one side, the
"other" account is on the other side. That's a split!

HTH

~mark petryk
~w:http://www.lorimarksolutions.com

Thank you very much
Kevin Wilcoxon

Re: [GNC] I'm looking at installing GnuCash but has a couple of questions first

2024-04-09 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Robert, and welcome to GnuCash:

On 2024-04-08 22:03, Robert Dew wrote:

I have a a number of small, separate, but interconnected companies that I'd 
like to
have separate accounting systems for.

Does GnuCash allow for multiple businesses, or would I need to install a 
separate
version for each business


The wording "install a separate version for each business" is a bit 
confusing to me.


GnuCash is an application which you install on your local personal 
computer, be it Windows, Mac, or Linux.  Then your bookkeeping data is 
stored in a "book file", a data file with extension "gnucash".  Normally 
one installs a single copy of the GnuCash app to one's computer, and 
then creates one or multiple data files. Because there is a only a 
single copy of the GnuCash app, it has only a single app version.


It is possible to install multiple copies of the GnuCash app, but it 
requires some fiddling. For normal use, there is no reason to do so.


If keeping books for separate but interconnected companies, you can 
choose to have a separate book file for each company, or put the 
transactions for different companies in a single book file with a 
sprawling chart of accounts to describe each of the companies. Which you 
choose is an accounting decision. You should equip yourself with 
accounting advice and expertise.  Which way does your accountant 
recommend you structure the bookkeeping?



It's a little unclear if GnuCash operates, or can be made to operate, via a 
remote
web browser. I see references to using X-windows which would be an acceptable
option, web/browser based would be my preference.


GnuCash is an application which you install on your local personal 
computer. It is not web hosted or accessed via a web browser.


Also note that GnuCash is limited to one user at a time.  If you are 
editing the book file and I want to edit also, then I have to wait until 
you close the book file before I can open it. If you want multiple 
employees to be doing bookkeeping on the same book file at once, this 
limit might be a problem for you.



Is there any restrictions on the self hosted version.


GnuCash is free software, so probably No, there are not the kind of 
restrictions on the locally installed app which you might be thinking 
of.  But to be sure, you need to read the GnuCash licence agreement, and 
maybe consult your own lawyer.


One more thing: because GnuCash is free software, there is no charge to 
download GnuCash, install it, set up some test book files, and try 
experiments. If you like what it does, keep using it, and start new book 
files with the real data. If you don't like it, then move on to look for 
something else.


Good luck with your search,
  —Jim DeLaHunt, using GnuCash for my small business since 2006ish.


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Re: [GNC] Finance::Quote Default Currency Module

2024-04-01 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bruce:

Thank you for the explanation.

On 2024-04-01 10:03, Bruce Schuck wrote:

On 3/31/24 16:46:44 -0700, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:


I'm getting ready to release Finance::Quote v1.60 to CPAN. It
appears that AlphaVantage has again changed how they deal with
throttling for requests using the free API keys/tokens. This has
affected some users that may have data that requires doing more
than a handful of currency exchange calculations.


Is there any written description of what throttling behaviour F::Q 
observes from AlphaVantage?


No.… But, the free API key is limited to 25 queries per day. …[snip]…


What is the difference to a consumer like me of F::Q getting the
data from YahooJSON rather than from AlphaVantage?


No difference at all. I think a benefit of changing the default to 
YahooJSON is that user's would not be forced to get an AV API Key even 
if they don't have securities using AlphaVantage for the data source.


So, it appears that the proposed change will be transparent for a 
simpleminded user like me. In that case I have no objections.


I am really glad that you are willing to do, and then regularly re-do, 
the magic which makes this happen for me. Thank you!



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Re: [GNC] Finance::Quote Default Currency Module

2024-03-31 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bruce:

I try to run GnuCash's "Get Quotes" feature every day, so every day I 
use your hard work on Finance::Quote and am grateful for it. Thank you.


On 2024-03-30 15:09, Bruce Schuck wrote:

Hello all,

I'm getting ready to release Finance::Quote v1.60 to CPAN. It appears 
that AlphaVantage has again changed how they deal with throttling for 
requests using the free API keys/tokens. This has affected some users 
that may have data that requires doing more than a handful of currency 
exchange calculations.


While the currency module used can be changed using the FQ_CURRENCY 
environment variable, I have been asked to change the default to 
YahooJSON instead of AlphaVantage.


Before I make such a change I wanted to get a general consensus from 
the GnuCash users.


Thank you for asking. But I'm afraid I don't understand what you are asking.

Is there any written description of what throttling behaviour F::Q 
observes from AlphaVantage?


I have an AlphaVantage API key registered in GnuCash's settings. I have 
about four currencies and 10-20 stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs which get 
price updates through my daily GnuCash "Get Quotes" regimen. Is this 
"more than a handful" of currency exchange calculations? Will I be one 
of the users affected by the throttling?


Is the proposed change only for looking up currency exchange rates, so 
does not affect lookup of securities prices?


What is the difference to a consumer like me of F::Q getting the data 
from YahooJSON rather than from AlphaVantage?


    —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] How to correct GnuCash's incorrect claim of imbalanced imported multi-split transaction

2024-03-24 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Erik:

Welcome to GnuCash-user! Thank you for your question.

You are asking a question about GnuCash. This list is a good place to do 
that.


On 2024-03-23 18:31, Erik Ellis wrote:

  <https://stackoverflow.com/posts/78212893/timeline>


It looks like you asked that same question on 
StackOverflow: <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/78212893/how-to-correct-gnucashs-incorrect-claim-of-imbalanced-imported-multi-split-tran>. 
Unfortunately, StackOverflow is not a very good place to for questions 
about using GnuCash.The StackExchange site on Personal Finance and Money 
<https://money.stackexchange.com> is a better place to ask questions 
about GnuCash.


But on to your question:


I'm in the process of importing an 886 line CSV file of multi-split
transactions in GnuCash. I.e., each transaction includes the debit and
credit line item. The problem I'm seeing is with every paycheck entry which
is a split transaction composed of a gross salary (a credit to an income
account) and ten debit items.


Three pieces of advice about data imports, especially for CSV:

1. Start with small bites, not a feast.  Cut just one transaction out of 
the big CSV file, and get that single transaction to import correctly. 
Then use what you learned from that to fix up the other transactions in 
the big file. Then cut another single transaction from the big file, and 
test if it now imports correctly.


2. To figure out what CSV format GnuCash accepts, try entering a 
transaction via the GnuCash UI, then export it to a CSV file. Look at 
the exported CSV file to get an idea of what structure GnuCash wants in 
its input.


3. Save your bookkeeping data as a separate GnuCash book file, and use 
this as a test file.  Do you imports here, adjusting the input file 
until it works correctly. The data changes in the test file won't 
disrupt your actual bookkeeping. Once the import works in the test file, 
then open your actual bookkeeping file, and do the import for real.



  When I import the CSV, every paycheck split
entry shows up in red during the "Match Transactions" step. If I then
continue with the import, an "Imbalance-USD" account is created with all
eleven of these items. The resulting net balance is zero.

Here is an example of the CSV:

10/9/2014^Gross Salary^-2931.92^Income:Salary:Paycheck^
FYI, the use of "^" in this email caused my mail client to hide the "^" 
before numbers, and display the numbers as superscripts. Below, I am 
inserting a space between "^" and numbers. This will hopefully let my 
email client display the data better.

10/9/2014^Gross Salary^ -2931.92^Income:Salary:Paycheck^
^Total Health - BCBS^ 32.90^Expenses:Medical:Health Insurance^
^Vision - Pre Tax^ 0.53^Expenses:Medical:Optical Insurance^
^Federal Payroll Taxes^ 682.21^Expenses:Taxes:Federal^
^FSA Total Health - BCBSNM^ 64.81^Liabilities:Loans:FSA 2014^
^State Payroll Taxes^ 107.85^Expenses:Taxes:State^
^Bought Vacation Buy^ 60.42^Liabilities:Loans:Vacation Buy^
^Dental Plan - Pre Tax^ 3.15^Expenses:Medical:Dental Insurance^
^Savings and Income Plan^ 175.92^Assets:Traditional IRA
Investments:Fidelity SNL 401(k)^
^Deposit In X Account^ 700.00^Assets:Taxable Investments:TD Ameritrade X^
^Direct Deposit Sandia^ 1104.13^Assets:Cash:SLFCU Checking^

I have no suggestions on the questions below:

Each of these accounts have been created and are correctly matched during
the "Match Import and GnuCash Accounts" step of the CSV import. Also, as
you can see the amounts do balance.

I don't understand why the transaction shows up in red during "Match
Transactions" step. The fact that it's red would suggest that the matching
GnuCash accounts are not found. If I double-click on the red lines and
select the proper account (exactly as it already appears in red), it turns
to green. Why it doesn't see that already is what I don't understand and
what I would like to fix.

Thank you.

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] split transaction description field length limit

2024-03-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Tim:

On 2024-03-03 15:39, Tim via gnucash-user wrote:

The descriptions that I enter in GNU cash for split items get truncated. Is
there a way to change this or is this a hard limit?


I am not certain, having not looked at the GnuCash code, but in my years 
using the program I have not come across a way to extend the length 
limit of the description, memo, or notes fields. I suspect it is not 
changeable.




To provide some context, I pay a handyman….
I like to enter a fairly long description which includes things
like the date the work was done, the location, and a brief description of
what was done but GNU cash truncates it….


I think it would be reasonable to respond with, GnuCash is an accounting 
program, and you are trying to use it for project tracking. It is 
reasonable for GnuCash to not attempt to be a project tracking program 
also.


I suggest a workaround: write in separate log document your detailed 
description, with date, location, and description of work. Make a 
concise tag or label for each entry in the log.  Put that tag or label 
in the GnuCash transaction record.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] GnuCash with Interactive Brokers

2024-02-04 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-02-04 01:56, km22 via gnucash-user wrote:


Hi Gnucash Users,

Does anyone on this mailing list have a method for importing
transactions from Interactive Brokers (IBKR) to GnuCash? (Especially
multi-currency users.)

I currently enter all transactions manually but would like to explore
ways of importing transactions.


Me too! I have Interactive Brokers accounts in two currencies. While the 
volume of transactions is low enough that I can keep up by hand entry, I 
would like to learn a more automated method.


I encourage contributions to the list and/or GnuCash wiki, not just 
individual emails to the original poster.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] File format question

2024-01-31 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Simon:

On 2024-01-31 10:11, Simon Roberts wrote:

...I'm investigating using logfiles as a means to identify changes that will
be made by my accountants for my year end. This leads me to two questions

First, is there documentation I can look at on this topic"? I didn't find
anything in the user guide, but am not particularly surprised at that.
I am not aware of documentation for the logfile format. It may exist, 
but as a long-time user and sometime developer, who has meddled with the 
XML content of my book file, I have not come across logfile 
documentation. If I wanted to find it, I would search the GnuCash 
wiki[1] first, and then the GnuCash source code[2].

Second, I notice that the main data file is binary. I thought it was XML
(perhaps that was at version 4?) But what's odder is that even if I
expressly request "save as XML", I still get a binary file. Is this
compressed, and if so, does anyone know what the compression is? ...


The XML data file is compressed by gzip. You can run gzip on the 
compressed file to recover the uncompressed XML file. Or, you can change 
GnuCash settings to not apply the compression. Read more in the 
/Tutorial and Concepts Guide/ [3], section 2.2.1 *Files* [4]. See also 
wiki articles *File*[5] and *GnuCash XML format*[6].


If you discover gaps in the Wiki articles, I encourage you to contribute 
improvements to the Wiki.


[1] Wiki <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/GnuCash>
[2] Source code <https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash>
[3] Tutorial and Concepts Guide 
<https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>
[4] Guide, 2.2.1 Files 
<https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/basics-entry1.html#basics-files2>

[5] Wiki article File <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/File>
[6] Wiki article GnuCash XML format 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/GnuCash_XML_format>


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Rollover IRA and brokerage account

2024-01-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Tom:

On 2024-01-29 12:34, Tom Balazs wrote:

I want to add accounts to my chart of accounts.
I need to add a Rollover IRA (which is a cash account).
And I need to add a Trust, which is a brokerage account (the financial
institution calls it a Resource Management Account)
On the institution's website I can see that it contains mutual funds,
corporate notes and bonds, and a "cash money fund".

How do I add that into my chart of accounts?...


Have you taken a look at the /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide/ 
<https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide> 
recently?  Consider reading Chapter 9. *Investments*, especially section 
9.2 *Setting Up Accounts*.



Would the rollover IRA go under "Current Assets" and just be an account like a 
checking account?
That is not how I would do it. Your rollover IRA portfolio is an 
investment, so it makes more sense to me to put it under the 
Assets:Investments: part of your accounts tree.

In my COA I see
Investments: Brokerage Account
- Bond
- Market Index
- Mutual Fund
- Stock

Would those accounts be the place to put the mutual funds, corporate notes and bonds, and 
the "cash money fund".


The approach described in section 9.2 is that your rollover IRA and your 
Trust would each be account under Assets:Investments: . Then each of the 
Rollover IRA and Trust GnuCash accounts would have a sub-account for 
Cash, and sub-accounts for each stock, bond, mutual fund, or security 
held as part of that brokerage account.


You will also want Expense GnuCash accounts for taxes, for fees and 
commissions you pay to the brokerages, and Income GnuCash accounts for 
interest, dividends, capital gains, and so on. Chapter 9 of the Guide 
explains more of this.



I will be selling assets and I need to track what is sold, at what price, taxes 
paid, and fees paid


It seems to me that this is only 10% a GnuCash question, and 90% an 
accounting question. Do you have an accountant who advises you on how to 
structure of your financial information, and how to get useful answers 
from it? That accountant can help you understand how to structure your 
accounts independent of GnuCash. Then you only need to figure out how to 
implement that structure using GnuCash tools.


Remember that you can rearrange the structure of your GnuCash accounts 
tree without losing transactions. If you start off putting the rollover 
IRA GnuCash account under the Current Accounts GnuCash account, you can 
decide later to move it under the Investments GnuCash account. It will 
take little effort and cause little disruption.


Finally, I think this advice from section 9.2 of the Guide is worth 
bearing in mind:


*Tip*: There really is no standard way to set up your investment 
account hierarchy. Play around, try different layouts until you find 
something which divides your investment accounts into logical groups 
which make sense to you. 

Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] End of year

2024-01-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-01-29 06:04, Mahon Finbar via gnucash-user wrote:


OK, I want to do it properly, but I had an email crash and .

So, can someone point me or send me the 'how to' for doing an end of 
year process, where I can 'inherit' the names from the autocomplete 
from the previous years?


You might want to start with this email thread: "[GNC] Why or why not to 
do year-end closing journal entries? (Close Books?)" from December 2023 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-December/109762.html>.


My top lesson about year-end closing books using GnuCash is, you don't 
have to do it. And so I don't. My books contain over 10 years of 
transactions at this point.


If you don't close books and start a new book file, then the existing 
book file, which you continue to use, will continue to provide 
autocomplete from previous years.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Importing from one gnucash file to another

2024-01-15 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


James:

On 2024-01-15 03:59, James Wilde wrote:
I am rationalising my accounting in Gnucash and have previously had 
one instance of Gnucash for each year.  I now would like to load an 
[earlier year's data] into the current year.  I have exported the 
earlier year as a csv file (I have used semi-colons instead of commas) 
but when I go to the current year to import it does not seem to be a 
possibility. It appears as though I must in some way edit the exported 
file in order to import it


Interesting.

I imagine that some more specifics about what you are observing might 
help others on the list get you through the next step.


You say, "when I go to the current year to import it does not seem to be 
a possibility."


You have run GnuCash and opened the book file for the current year, the 
file which will receive the earlier file's data, correct?


You are selecting the menu item, File -- Import -- Import Transactions 
from CSV, correct?


Does the Transaction Import Assistant appear?

Are you able to get past the first page of the Assistant? Does the 
"Select File for Import" page appear?


In the "Select File for Import" page, are you able to locate the CSV 
file which has the earlier data?


Is the name of that CSV file displayed as regular (black) text, or is it 
greyed-out text?


If you click on the name of the CSV, and click the "Next" button? Does 
the "Import Preview" page appear?


Do you encounter any problems on the "Import Preview" page? Are you able 
to click "Next"? Does the "Match Import and GnuCash accounts" page appear?


(and so on…)

I am using GnuCash in English. If you are using GnuCash in Swedish, and 
my English-language names do not translate easily to yours, I apologise 
for the confusion.


Both the earlier year and the current year have the same account list. 
I am using Build ID: 4.12+(2022-09-24).


Thank you for supplying those important facts. What computer OS are you 
using? Windows 11?


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Install Finance::Quotes

2024-01-15 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Gustavo, and welcome to Gnucash!

On 2024-01-14 11:58, Gustavo Taouil wrote:

...I have MacBook Pro m3 with macOS Sonome. I followed the instructions in wiki 
page of Gnucash to install the Finance::Quote. I use this command in terminal :

sudo ARCHFLAGS='-arch arm64 -arch arm64e -arch x86_64' 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

The command installs several packages in pearl 5.3 folder but didn’t install 
Finance::Quote. Debugging the code I found that I can’t install the package 
LWP::Protocol::https.


Has anyone had a problem like this?


Having problems with Finance::Quote, including on macOS, is a regular 
feature of the questions on this list. So, yes.


Have you read the page of the GnuCash wiki about Online Quotes, 
especially 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Installing_Finance::Quote_on_macOS>?


Are you using Perl for anything apart from GnuCash's use for quotes? If 
so, then those uses may clash with GnuCash's uses.


Are you using Homebrew or MacPorts to install software onto your Mac?  
If so, they may have installed a separate copy of Perl which conflicts 
with the one GnuCash uses.


In the Terminal, please run these three commands, and let us know what 
output you get. (The '%' marks the command prompt in Terminal; you don't 
type in that part.)


% whence perl

% perl --version

% /usr/bin/perl --version

I hope we will be able to help you over this hump.

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Maddening!!!!!!!!

2024-01-11 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Jack:

On 2024-01-11 09:11, Jack Slater wrote:

90 minutes of reconciling down the drain with a crash near the end of the
final account
My commiserations. Yes, it is maddening to lose 90 minutes of work when
the tech decides to fail you.

... Oddly, even though GnuC auto saves periodically, it seems
none of any add/delete/balance transactions were saved in any account! Why
would that be

I can think of several interesting directions you could take this thread:

Why didn't GnuCash seem to preserve any of the changes in my 90 minutes
of work?

How can I change my workflow so that I lose less work when the tech
decides to fail me?

How can I improve the way I write message to this list, so that I get
more helpful answers?

How can I stop these tech failures from happening?

On that last point, I can offer two concrete suggestions:

1. GnuCash has a "Check and Repair" feature which is useful to try when
you are concerned about "rogue" transactions and such. Try going to the
Accounts tab of the main window, and select menu item Actions -- Check
and Repair -- Repair All. This menu is described a little in the GnuCash
manual, section 4.2.1.4. "Account Tree - Actions Menu", at
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/gui-acct-tree.html#AccTree-actions-menu>.

2. The text in your "Entry Point Not Found" dialogue, which GnuCash
displays when it crashes, has been discussed on this list recently. It
is described in a bug report at
<https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=799170>. It is suspected to be
problem from GnuCash 5.4 leaving pieces behind when GnuCash 5.5
installs. There is a workaround there:

a. Use the File Explorer to open "C:\Program Files (x86)\gnucash\bin\"

b. If there is a file named "libxmlsec1.dll" present, but no file named
"libxmlsec.dll", then rename file "libxmlsec1.dll" to the name
"libxmlsec.dll" (without the trailing "1").

I do not use GnuCash on Windows, so I have no experience with this
problem. I only know what I read. If you ask this list directly about
how to work around this bug, Windows users may be able to give you
better help.

I hope this helps,
—Jim DeLaHunt

Re: [GNC] International Currency Transactions? [was: Re: gnucash-user Digest, Vol 250, Issue 4]

2024-01-05 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Eric:

Glad that the first reply helped you get started.

(By the way, when you read the list as a digest, and you want to reply, 
please change the Subject: line of your reply from the generic digest 
number to the correct Subject: line for the message to which you are 
replying. That is what I did above.)


On 2024-01-05 06:31, Eric H. Bowen via gnucash-user wrote:
…What I don't see is how to account for a purchase of books in the 
United Kingdom, with an invoice denominated in GBP, which will be 
settled up by an international debit card payment from a bank in the 
USA at whatever exchange rate VISA is currently charging.…


I do this sort of transaction all the time.

You have the choice of tracking such expenses in the sale currency, or 
in your purchase currency. I do both. There are some currencies that I 
use often enough that I have a parallel set of Expense accounts 
denominated in those currencies. There are others that I use rarely, so 
I track the expense in the purchase currency.


This is my procedure, when I track in the sale currency:

1. Create Expense accounts denominated in the currencies which you want
   to track.  For instance, if you want to track your GBP purchase of
   books in GBP terms, create an account Expenses:"Pounds Book
   Purchase" which has the account currency set to "GBP".
2. Start the transaction in the register of the account that pays for
   the purchase. In your example, that will be the register for the USA
   debit card. Why? Because each transaction has a hidden base
   currency, and all splits on other currencies will be converted to
   this base currency. GnuCash sets the transaction's base currency to
   the currency of the account from which you create the transaction.
   It is more straightforward for that base currency to match the
   payment currency, rather than, say, the Expense:Pounds Book Purchase
   account currency.
3. Begin entering the transaction as normal. Fill in Date, Description,
   Notes as you normally would.
4. Fill in the Transfer Account field with the name of the Expense
   account of the currency you want to track. In this example, you use
   Expenses:"Pounds Book Purchase".
5. In the Charge field, fill in the purchase amount /in the purchase
   currency/. You will need to find out from your bank what exchange
   rate VISA charged, and therefore what the purchase amount was,
   before you can enter this.
6. Before you can save the transaction, GnuCash will display a Transfer
   Funds dialogue.  At the top, under "Basic Information", it will
   display the purchase amount which you entered. At the bottom, under
   "Currency Transfer", it will let you enter the sale amount, in the
   sale currency (which will be the currency of the account you put
   into the Transfer Account field).

…I've set up a "sandbox" file with a currencies Price List and I've 
attempted to change the "Purchase Information" of the vendor on the 
bill to GBP, but the program locks up when I attempt to post it to 
Accounts Payable. I've tried creating a GBP-denominated Accounts 
Payable sub-account, but GnuCash apparently doesn't like that one bit 
either.…


Good for your for setting up the "sandbox" file. That will help you 
figure things out.


You mention "vendor" and "bill" and "Accounts Payable". That says to me 
that you are using the Business features to handle this transaction. I'm 
afraid I can't help you with the Business features for tracking 
purchases and expenses, because I don't use them.


Also, I have Trading Accounts enabled. I don't have experience in how 
GnuCash behaves without them.




…I'm at the start of what will hopefully be a long-term undertaking, 
and I want to set off on the right foot. 


I think you are off to a good start, and are asking good questions. I 
look forward to hearing what works out for you. I am confident that you 
will help other future GnuCash users.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Manage Document Link

2024-01-04 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Tom:

On 2024-01-03 06:10, Tom Balazs wrote:

I want to attach an image of a bill to a transaction.
At a high level, let me say that I do similar things in my bookkeeping 
all the time. GnuCash handles it well.

I click Manage Document Link.
I get "Path head not set, using "/home/tom/" for relative paths.
Is that the best Path to use?
Where does GnuCash begin navigating from?
When you select the menu item "Transaction" -- "Manage Document 
Link...", the "Change a Transaction Linked Document" dialogue appears.


It lets you attach one of three kinds of link to transactions:

1. A "Linked File", with an absolute path to a file on your computer.
2. A "Linked File", with a relative path to a file on your computer.
3. A "Linked Location", that is, a URL which serves as a reminder for you.

The dialogue also displays the "path head for files", an absolute path 
to some directory on your computer. In the case where you store a linked 
file using relative path, GnuCash combines it with the path head to make 
an absolute path to the file.


It sounds like GnuCash noticed that you had never set the path head for 
files, so it let you know it was choosing a reasonable default.


You can change the path head for linked files setting in the GnuCash 
preferences, "General" tab, "Linked FIles" section. There is a pulldown 
menu which shows the current path head, and lets you use a File Open 
dialogue to choose a new path head. You can see this General tab of 
Settings in the GnuCash manual, section 10.2 "General", at 
<https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/set-prefs.html>. See 
Figure 10.4.


When you change the path head, GnuCash displays a dialogue with two 
check boxes. The first offers to change existing relative paths to 
absolute paths, by combining them with the existing path head. The 
second offers to change existing absolute paths, which point to the new 
path head directory or its subdirectories, into relative paths.


I believe, but have not read the code to confirm, that GnuCash will 
store a Linked File path as relative if it points to a location within 
your path head directory or its subdirectories. Otherwise, it will store 
the Linked File path as absolute. Certainly this is my model of how 
GnuCash works, and I have not seen evidence to contradict it.


(By the way, internally, the Linked File options are also URLs, with a 
"file:" protocol prefix. If you save the GnuCash book file in 
uncompressed XML format, you can open it up with a text editor and see 
the document link values. I did this once.)




I would like the path to be relative so that if I move all my GnuCash files
to another folder the document links will still work.


I do something very similar, so I am confident that you can do what you 
want.


I store my book file within a year-based Projects directory. Next to the 
book file is a subdirectory with my linked files. The following diagram 
may be legible if drawn with a fixed-pitch font:


|
+- 2024/ -+
|     +- book.gnucash
| +- linked_files/
|
+- 2023/ -+
|     +- book.gnucash   [as of end of 2023]
| +- linked_files/  [as of end of 2023]
| etc.

At the start of 2024, I created my "2024" directory. I copied the 
"linked_files" directory and all the files in it from the 2023 to the 
2024 directory. I opened "book.gnucash" with GnuCash, then used the File 
-- Save as… menu item to store a copy of "book.gnucash" in "2024". I 
used the GnuCash preferences, "General" tab, "Linked FIles" section to 
change the path head from .../2023/linked_files/ to 
.../2024/linked_files/ . I left both boxes unchecked in the following 
dialogue box, so my relative Linked File paths remained relative.


Now, when I select a transaction with a linked file, and use menu item 
"Transaction" -- "Open Linked Document", GnuCash opens the copy of the 
file in .../2024/linked_files/... .


If that is the behaviour you want, it has worked well for me.

Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] International Currency Transactions?

2024-01-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-01-03 07:13, Eric H. Bowen via gnucash-user wrote:
I'm based in the US and so all of my transactions have been in USD; 
when that isn't the case my credit card company has taken care of the 
currency conversion. But I have a new printing vendor now with several 
plants overseas which bill in the local currency. I just ordered a POD 
copy of a book to be delivered in the UK, billed in Pounds Sterling. 
I've created a vendor invoice, itemized, with the various line item 
prices.


What's the most efficient and flexible way to convert this to USD for 
accounting and tax purposes? I see that GnuCash does have a currency 
conversion/price editing feature, but I'm not sure of how to make it 
work for this application. I'd appreciate a pointer to a tutorial.


Welcome to the world of multiple-currency bookkeeping in GnuCash.

The Gnucash Tutorial and Concepts Guide, chapter 12. "Multiple 
Currencies" is a fine place to start.

<https://gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide//chapter_currency.html>

Also, a good way to experiment with GnuCash features which you don't 
know well is to make a separate book file with test data, to try out 
features and workflows.  Once you understand how that part of GnuCash 
works, and what steps to take to accomplish your goals, repeat the 
process with your real book file and real data.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada


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Re: [GNC] GUID Register Codes

2023-12-30 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-12-29 22:53, Stephen wrote:
…Having the GUID … could have GUIDed me perhaps. I really appreciate 
y'alls help.


I saw what you did there. Bravo!
 —Jim "I am not a dad but I tell dad jokes" DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] GUID Register Codes

2023-12-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Stephen:

I can't answer your question fully, but I can give you some insight.

"GUID" stands for "Globally Unique Identifier". Each GUID is a large 
number, which is generated in such a way that it is highly likely to be 
different than any other GUID generated on any computer at any time 
according to the same rules. On the other hand, the same GUID value 
might show up in multiple places. Sometimes software developers generate 
a GUID and embed it their code, so that everyone gets a copy of the same 
GUID value. Another name for GUID is UUID, meaning "Universally" instead 
of "Globally".


GUIDs are written to SQL databases, but they are not a creature of SQL. 
GnuCash also generates them when the book file is stored in XML form (as 
a ".gnucash" file).   And, because they are globally unique, it is 
likely that your book contains different GUIDs than anybody else's book. 
Each account has a GUID associated, but there is no reason to believe 
that anyone else will have the same GUIDs for their accounts as you have 
for yours.


I don't have an easy way to find out which GUID corresponds what account 
or other object. My way of doing that is to save my book as an XML file, 
open the file with a text editor, and search for the GUID value. 
Somewhere in the file will be data which defines the account, and it 
will include the GUID value and account name in close proximity. But 
that may or may not be the best way for you to proceed.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-12-29 15:30, Stephen wrote:
The previous postings about "Balance Column Lost" have led me to ask 
about GUID register codes as I repaired some column width problems. By 
trial and error I was able to modify the .GCM file to repair the width 
of a couple of columns that I had narrowed (not to 0 or 1 but 5). 
Adrien Monteleone's guidance worked very well although scrolling 
looking for a small width was faster than a search after 0 and 1 
produced no results. So Thanks!  I am still stumped by the registries 
GUID codes. How can I find out which register is referenced by each of 
the GUID codes, please? I have a feeling that it may have something to 
do with SQL but that too has eluded me in past efforts open SQL files 
and make any sense of it. Appreciate any guidance...the more simple 
the better! Thank you.

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Re: [GNC] Indian rupee symbol ₹

2023-12-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Paras:

What version of GnuCash are you using?

And, it sounds like you are on a Windows 10 computer. Is that right?

When asking for help with GnuCash, it almost always helps to be specific
about the version of GnuCash and of your operating system.

Also, a search of the GnuCash documentation turns out some possibly
useful reading:

The GnuCash FAQ, it tells how to "replace Display Symbol with your
desired text":
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_I_dislike_some_of_the_new_currency_symbols_of_GnuCash_2.6>

In Stack Overflow, somone asked "How to show ₹ symbol in GNUCash?", and
the reply specified to put a space after the "₹" symbol. Without the
space, GnuCash apparently displays "?".
<https://stackoverflow.com/a/46500092>

If this works for you, please tell the list what worked. That helps the
next person who wants to do the same thing.

Best regards,

—Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-12-29 09:20, Paras Desai wrote:

Hello

I was trying to introduce Indian rupee symbol ₹ instead of Rs. In GNUCASH

I tried to follow following steps..

1. I went to regional setting of my windows 10 and changed the currency symbol
from drop-down option to ₹. After doing this when I opened GNU, Rs. Was
replaced by ? Mark.

2. Then I tried to go to currency setting (security setting) found Indian
rupee, pressed edit at bottom and tried to change currency symbol from Rs. To ₹
by pressing control+ alter+ 4. I could type rupee symbol but after pressing ok
it reverted to Rs.

3 So GNU recognises rupee ₹ symbol neither through window setting nor setting
from within GNU case nor combination of both.

It does recognise other currency symbol however.

This is not absolutely critical, but thought of sharing.

With my best regards

Paras

Get Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>
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[GNC] Thoughts on Online Quotes documentation

2023-12-24 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

I recently had a problem[1] with getting online quotes from GnuCash 5.5 
on macOS. It caused me to reflect on some shortcomings[2] of the GnuCash 
wiki page on Online Quotes[3]. This message is an attempt to capture 
some thoughts on how that the Online Quotes documentation might be 
improved. Actually doing the improvement is a big job. I don't promise 
to do it myself right now.


A general observation: the top of Online Quotes is big and sprawling, 
with many facets:


1. The task: how to install, how to update, how to configure stock
   entries, how to get quotes, how to get historical prices
2. The components of the online quotes machinery:
1. the Perl interpreter
2. Finance::Quote and the Perl modules on which it depends
3. GnuCash's tools for installing Finance::Quote
4. System installs vs package manager installs of Perl & modules
   (I'm looking at you, Homebrew and MacPorts)
3. The different platforms — Unix, macOS, Apple Silicon vs x86_64 on
   macOS, Windows, different versions of Windows. There are variants of
   many of the sections for the various platforms.
4. The different data sources and symbols quirks for each
5. Troubleshooting
6. Versions of GnuCash: the facilities for online quotes have changed
   from major version to major version of GnuCash, and that content is
   folded together into one wiki page.
7. The documentation locations: the Online Quotes wiki page[3], and two
   places in the GnuCash manual[4][5], aspire to be well coordinated
   but have evolved away from that.

The current Online Quotes wiki page is 108,503 bytes mixing together 
#1-#6 above. That is so big and confusing to be hard to navigate.


One short term action could be to agree how to refactor. Then various 
people can take incremental refactoring steps.


In particular, I suggest we consider splitting Online Quotes by GnuCash 
version groups, then by platform. Version groups are ranges of GnuCash 
versions, and change where the Online Quotes behaviour in GnuCash 
changed: current is GnuCash 5.x, previous is 4.x, before that is 3.11 
and earlier. Platform is probably: macOS (inc Homebrew, Gnucash), 
Windows, Unix, cross-platform.


Imagine the article  refers to 
sub-articles like 
, 
, 
. (Those 
names are for illustration only. Getting good names will probably take 
some work.)


Another short-term action is to move content out of the wiki article and 
into the GnuCash Manual, especially for Installation. The article says, 
"Before you continue read the Official Documentation... We try to reduce 
redundancy." Let's take that seriously.


Hopefully these notes contribute to whatever improvement project gets done.
Best regards,
   —Jim DeLaHunt

[1] [GNC] GnuCash 5.5 (macOS) can't get quotes, because it doesn't see 
JSON::Parse,  Sat, 23 Dec 2023 12:30:43 -0800 
<https://www.mail-archive.com/gnucash-user@gnucash.org/msg38877.html>


[2] ibid thread,  Sun, 24 Dec 2023 11:31:44 -0800 
<https://www.mail-archive.com/gnucash-user@gnucash.org/msg38883.html>


[3] <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes>

[4] GnuCash Manual, 5.4.2. "Steps to enable Online Quotes updating" 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual//acct-create.html#accts-online-quotes>


[5] GnuCash Manual, Chapter 11. "Setting Up the Quote Retrieval" 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-manual/finance-quote.html>

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Re: [GNC] Updated GnuCash from 3.8 to 5.4

2023-12-24 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Sharon:

On 2023-12-23 08:24, sc wrote:

Hello!

Due to purchasing a new computer, I had to install GnuCash again, thus 
a new version.


Everything seems pretty good with my data, except:

1)  My previous "Saved Report Configurations" have disappeared. Is 
there a way to retrieve them from my old computer?


2)  I used to have the account names all colored coded on my register 
views.  Did that function disappear?


Thank you for any help!  I am a home user without a lot of computer 
expertise.


Some places to look for more help:

1. the GnuCash FAQ on the Wiki, specifically "Q: I just got a new 
computer. What should I copy over from my old one?" 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_I_just_got_a_new_computer._What_should_I_copy_over_from_my_old_one.3F>


2. Do you still have the old computer? Have you avoided adding a lot of 
data to your GnuCash book in the new location? If so, you can perhaps 
redo the transition. The FAQ suggests, "You need to copy the same files 
that you'd backup, so see Backup 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Backup>." "copy the configuration files 
to the older version location and let GnuCash move them to the new 
locations."


3. Check out the "Configuration Locations" article to find your report 
settings. <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Configuration_Locations>


And of course, if that doesn't work, come on back here and ask your next 
question.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] GnuCash 5.5 (macOS) can't get quotes, because it doesn't see JSON::Parse

2023-12-24 Thread Jim DeLaHunt



On 2023-12-24 10:25, john wrote:



On Dec 23, 2023, at 20:03, Jim DeLaHunt  wrote:

...Then I launched the GnuCash application. Now, the "Get Quotes" button in the 
Price Database dialogue was active, and I could retrieve quotes successfully.

Yay!

Conclusions I tentatively draw from this experience:

1. GnuCash users on macOS with Apple Silicon must be careful to run
   gnc-fq-update with the arch -arch x86_64 qualifier.
2. gnc-fq-update fails to report at least some problems with Perl
   modules compiled for Apple Silicon, where the GnuCash application
   rejects the configuration.
3. When the GnuCash application rejects the configuration due to Perl
   modules compiled for Apple Silicon, neither the diagnostics printed
   by gnucash-cli nor the telemetry in the --debug log written by the
   GnuCash application mentions that Perl modules compiled for the
   wrong architecture are the problem.
4. It would be nice if the GnuCash + Finance::Quote system did not
   suffer from this fragility. But I understand that the root cause of
   the fragility is that WebKitGtk doesn't work when built for Apple
   Silicon, and that is not trivial to overcome.
5. The Online Quotes wiki page should get some information about the
   need to get Perl modules compiled for x86 architecture, but I don't
   think I know enough to write that information correctly.

Does that sound right?

Again, thank you for your help, John.

Jim,

...the parts that were actually causing the problem are 
/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/DateTime/DateTime.bundle and 
JSON/Parse.bundle, the compiled C resources that the perl parts depend on...
Thank you for this information, John. It is way more than I know about 
how Perl modules work on multi-architecture aware macOS.

...GnuCash's perl scripts, finance-quote-wrapper and gnc-fq-update, are of 
necessity quite generic: They have to run on both Unix and Microsoft operating 
systems. Moreover perl itself doesn't report many errors in 
machine-interpretable form. It would be difficult to get the information that 
modules installed for the wrong architecture into a tracefile


I see the problem. Yet I suspect that the Finance::Quote infrastructure 
is getting complex and error-prone enough that it is worth more 
attention.  I also suspect that this problem seems big to me because I 
just experienced it. It may now work for me, so that I may be able to 
ignore it for the next five years — and then the Finance::Quote 
infrastructure will seem elegant and reliable to me. :-)


One of my confusions was that "gnc-fq-update" said that the necessary 
modules were installed, while "gnucash-cli --quotes info" reported that 
one of the options was missing. How about having gnc-fq-update and 
gnucash-cli --quotes info both check not just what modules Perl say it 
has installed, but attempting to initialise Finance::Quote and retrieve 
a quote as well?  I suspect that in my case, the attempt to initialise 
Finance::Quote would have failed.  Then those diagnostics perhaps would 
have given me better information.



As for the wiki's Online Quotes page, are the year-old directions to prefix 
gnc-fq-update with arch -arch x86_64 on Apple Silicon macs not clear enough? 
What more should it say? Perhaps something about diagnosing a failed 
installation and the steps needed to repair it?


I did not see those instructions, because they were about 60% of the way 
through over 100kB of text, under a heading of "Installing 
Finance::Quote on macOS" 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Installing_Finance::Quote_on_macOS>, 
and my framing of the problem was that I was troubleshooting an 
installed and functional Finance::Quote deployment which stopped working 
when I upgraded the GnuCash application.


So, certainly making a reference to macOS architectures in the 
troubleshooting section would help. Refactoring that page into focussed 
parts much shorter than 100 kB would help also.


Thank you again for your helpful answers, your expertise, and your 
careful building of all this mostly-elegant and mostly-reliable 
infrastructure.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] GnuCash 5.5 (macOS) can't get quotes, because it doesn't see JSON::Parse

2023-12-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt



On 2023-12-23 19:19, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:


On 2023-12-23 15:38, John Ralls wrote:


On Dec 23, 2023, at 12:29 PM, Jim DeLaHunt  
wrote:


Hi, folks:

I recently upgraded to GnuCash 5.5-1 on macOS, ...retrieving quotes 
via AlphaVantage for ... stopped working.

...
But the gnucash-fq-update utility thinks everything is fine:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

Password:

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
   Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Test2 is up to date (1.302198).
Finance::Quote is up to date (1.58).
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

And CPAN seems to think that JSON::Parse is present:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo cpan
Password:
Loading internal logger. Log::Log4perl recommended for better logging

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Terminal does not support /...[elided]...
/cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v2.36)
Enter 'h' for help.

cpan[1]> m JSON::Parse
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
   Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Module id = JSON::Parse
 CPAN_USERID  BKB (Ben Bullock )
 CPAN_VERSION 0.62
 CPAN_FILE    B/BK/BKB/JSON-Parse-0.62.tar.gz
 UPLOAD_DATE  2022-07-15
 MANPAGE  JSON::Parse - Parse JSON
 INST_FILE 
/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/JSON/Parse.pm

 INST_VERSION 0.62


cpan[2]> install JSON::Parse
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

...For what it's worth, MacPorts has perl 5.34.3 installed, and the 
perl 5.34 edition of JSON::Parse as well. The system has perl 5.30.3 
installed. I do not know if this difference is significant.


...Thank you in advance for your help. And many thanks to the 
GnuCash developers for all the improvements in the 5.x versions!
...You can force using that system perl on the command line by using 
the path instead of just `perl`, e.g.
   sudo /usr/bin/perl 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update


will force using the system perl and its builtin @INC as long as 
$PERL5LIB isn't set in the environment.


Note that if your mac is an Apple Silicon one that you need to 
specify arch x86_64, as in
   sudo arch -arch x86_64 /usr/bin/perl 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update


(all on one line) because otherwise perl will build and install F::Q 
and friends for Apple Silicon


My computer does indeed use Apple Silicon. Specifying the path to perl 
had no effect:


% sudo arch -arch x86_64 /usr/bin/perl 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update


Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Test2 is up to date (1.302198).
Finance::Quote is up to date (1.58).
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).
%

Maybe my installation somehow installed JSON::Parse for Apple Silicon, 
and that is why the GnuCash application cannot find it.


I would try to uninstall JSON::Parse and Finance::Quote, and let cpan 
or gnc-fq-update reinstall them, but a brief web search seems to say 
that CPAN has no command to uninstall modules.


I do think I have found where the actual files might be:

% ls -ld 
/Library/Perl/5.30/{,darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/}{JSON/Parse,Finance/Quote}

ls: /Library/Perl/5.30/JSON/Parse: No such file or directory
drwxr-xr-x  59 root  wheel  1888 21 Dec 00:32 
/Library/Perl/5.30/Finance/Quote
drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel    96 10 May  2022 
/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/Finance/Quote
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  wheel   128 21 Dec 00:32 
/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/auto/JSON/Parse


Is it significant that Finance::Quote has an entry in 
/Library/Perl/5.30/, but JSON::Parse does not?



I appear to have fixed it. I suspect that John's comment about


...you need to specify arch x86_64...because otherwise perl will build and 
install F::Q and friends for Apple Silicon. GnuCash is built for Intel only 
because WebKitGtk doesn't work when built for Apple Silicon and GnuCash will 
run an x86_64 perl under Rosetta2; if a needed module isn't available for Intel 
then F::Q will fail.
I followed a hypothesis that some of the Perl modules in my system 
location were built for Apple Silicon, and that the GnuCash application 
(being built for Intel only) could not find them.


I could run /usr/bin/cpan to look at modules in the system location. See 
transcript above. It includes:


cpan[1]> m JSON::Parse
/...[elided].../
Module id = JSON::Parse
/ ...[elided].../
 INST_FILE /Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/JSON/Parse.pm
 INST_VERSION 0.62

I found files at that path, JSON/Parse.pm and JSON/Parse.pod. I deleted 
them:


% s

Re: [GNC] GnuCash 5.5 (macOS) can't get quotes, because it doesn't see JSON::Parse

2023-12-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-12-23 15:38, John Ralls wrote:

On Dec 23, 2023, at 12:29 PM, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

Hi, folks:

I recently upgraded to GnuCash 5.5-1 on macOS, ...retrieving quotes via
AlphaVantage for ... stopped working.
...
But the gnucash-fq-update utility thinks everything is fine:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update
Password:

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Test2 is up to date (1.302198).
Finance::Quote is up to date (1.58).
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

And CPAN seems to think that JSON::Parse is present:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo cpan
Password:
Loading internal logger. Log::Log4perl recommended for better logging

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Terminal does not support /...[elided]...
/cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v2.36)
Enter 'h' for help.

cpan[1]> m JSON::Parse
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Module id = JSON::Parse
CPAN_USERID BKB (Ben Bullock )
CPAN_VERSION 0.62
CPAN_FILEB/BK/BKB/JSON-Parse-0.62.tar.gz
UPLOAD_DATE 2022-07-15
MANPAGE JSON::Parse - Parse JSON
INST_FILE /Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/JSON/Parse.pm
INST_VERSION 0.62

cpan[2]> install JSON::Parse
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

...For what it's worth, MacPorts has perl 5.34.3 installed, and the perl 5.34
edition of JSON::Parse as well. The system has perl 5.30.3 installed. I do not
know if this difference is significant.

...Thank you in advance for your help. And many thanks to the GnuCash
developers for all the improvements in the 5.x versions!

Jim,

It matters which perl is invoked, because each "minor" perl version (minor in quotes
because just like GnuCash before we truncated the version to two digits, perl's "major"
version has been fixed since the turn of the century) gets it's own versioned directories of
modules.

It might also matter that one of the Perls is MacPorts because MacPorts might
install its perl modules in the MacPorts installation tree.

You can use
perl -e 'print join("\n", @INC), "\n"`
(include the quotes) in each environment to see where that perl is looking for
modules.

The value of $PATH is different when running from the command line in Terminal
and when launching an app with LaunchServices, either by using the `open`
command from a command line prompt or double-clicking the app's icon in Finder.
...

I believe that by specifying the path before each of my invocations, I
was steering the GnuCash app to the system Perl, 5.30, rather than the
MacPorts Perl, 5.34.

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' /usr/bin/perl -e
'print join("\n", @INC), "\n"'

/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/Library/Perl/5.30
/Network/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/Network/Library/Perl/5.30
/Library/Perl/Updates/5.30.3/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/Library/Perl/Updates/5.30.3
/System/Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/System/Library/Perl/5.30
/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level
/System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.30
%

...You can force using that system perl on the command line by using the path
instead of just `perl`, e.g.
sudo /usr/bin/perl
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

will force using the system perl and its builtin @INC as long as $PERL5LIB
isn't set in the environment.

Note that if your mac is an Apple Silicon one that you need to specify arch
x86_64, as in
sudo arch -arch x86_64 /usr/bin/perl
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

(all on one line) because otherwise perl will build and install F::Q and
friends for Apple Silicon

My computer does indeed use Apple Silicon. Specifying the path to perl
had no effect:

% sudo arch -arch x86_64 /usr/bin/perl
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

Maybe my installation somehow installed JSON::Parse for Apple Silicon,
and that is why the GnuCash application cannot find it.

I would try to uninstall JSON::Parse and Finance::Quote, and let cpan or
gnc-fq-update reinstall them, but a brief web search seems to say that
CPAN has no command to uninstall modules.

I do think I have found where the actual files might be:

% ls -ld
/L

[GNC] GnuCash 5.5 (macOS) can't get quotes, because it doesn't see JSON::Parse

2023-12-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hi, folks:

I recently upgraded to GnuCash 5.5-1 on macOS, from 4.14 and a long 
succession of GnuCashes before that. I have been successfully retrieving 
quotes via AlphaVantage for a long time. With the upgrade to GnuCash 
5.5, that stopped working.


When I run the GnuCash 5.5 application, and open the Price Database 
window, the "Get Quotes" button is disabled.


When I ask gnucash-cli for quotes info, it says JSON::Parse is not 
installed:


% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli --quotes info

Application Path /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli
Failed to initialize Finance::Quote: missing_modules JSON::Parse

Similarly, when I run the GnuCash 5.5 application in --debug mode, and 
look at the log file, there is a message that JSON::Parse is missing:


/...[59 lines elided]...
/* 11:45:37  INFO  [scm_run_gnucash] Attempt to load 
Finance::Quote returned this error message:
* 11:45:37  INFO  [scm_run_gnucash] Failed to initialize 
Finance::Quote: missing_modules JSON::Parse

/...[134,149 lines elided]...
/

But the gnucash-fq-update utility thinks everything is fine:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

Password:

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Test2 is up to date (1.302198).
Finance::Quote is up to date (1.58).
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

And CPAN seems to think that JSON::Parse is present:

% PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin' sudo cpan
Password:
Loading internal logger. Log::Log4perl recommended for better logging

Starting with /...[elided].../ this dialog will disappear.
Terminal does not support /...[elided]...
/cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v2.36)
Enter 'h' for help.

cpan[1]> m JSON::Parse
Reading '/Users/jdlh/.cpan/Metadata'
  Database was generated on Fri, 22 Dec 2023 23:54:07 GMT
Module id = JSON::Parse
    CPAN_USERID  BKB (Ben Bullock )
    CPAN_VERSION 0.62
    CPAN_FILE    B/BK/BKB/JSON-Parse-0.62.tar.gz
    UPLOAD_DATE  2022-07-15
    MANPAGE  JSON::Parse - Parse JSON
    INST_FILE /Library/Perl/5.30/darwin-thread-multi-2level/JSON/Parse.pm
    INST_VERSION 0.62


cpan[2]> install JSON::Parse
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).

Note that I am using MacPorts on this system. That sometimes leads to 
confusion, as described in 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Multiple_Perl_installations_on_macOS>. 
Thus I prefix commands with a PATH that excludes MacPorts, in the hopes 
that I will be checking only the system Perl locations which the GnuCash 
app consults.


For what it's worth, MacPorts has perl 5.34.3 installed, and the perl 
5.34 edition of JSON::Parse as well. The system has perl 5.30.3 
installed. I do not know if this difference is significant.


I have read through the wiki page Online Quotes. I think I have done 
what that page suggests. (Also, that page has now become a bit of a 
mess, because it mixes together instructions for several different 
online quotes tools from versions 5, 4, and pre-4 of GnuCash.)


Interestingly, when I run gnucash-cli from the GnuCash-provided 
application and a path that includes MacPorts, it seems happy with the 
Finance::Quote installation from MacPorts:


 % /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli --quotes info
Application Path /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli
Found Finance::Quote version 1.58.
Finance::Quote sources:
aex  alphavantage  amfiindia    asegr asx
/...[elided].../
xetra    yahoo_json   yahooweb za

Thus I have a workaround: get quotes via gnucash-cli, which perhaps 
relies on the MacPorts installation of Finance::Quote rather than the 
built-in installation.


% /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli --quotes get 
/...[elided].../ledger.gnucash

Application Path /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli
Found Finance::Quote version 1.58.
%

Any suggestions for how to diagnose and fix the Get Quotes functionality 
within the GnuCash application?


Thank you in advance for your help. And many thanks to the GnuCash 
developers for all the improvements in the 5.x versions!

  —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada

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Re: [GNC] Definition of document root

2023-12-14 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Brook:
[cc'ing gnucash-user list]

On 2023-12-14 20:48, Brook Milligan wrote:

Hi,

I saw your correction to the bug report.  Sorry that I did not appreciate the 
distinction.

Does this mean I should go ahead with another enhancement request?

Cheers,
Brook


Thank you for finding bug report #797816. I was not correcting the bug 
report, I was making it easier to find.


A couple of days ago, in response to your list posts, I searched the bug 
database using terms like "document root". I did not find #797816. So, 
my comment had the effect of adding the term "document root" to the bug 
report. Now it will be discovered to those searching for the term you 
used in your messages to the gnucash-user.


I think it is better to keep our attention on #797816, rather than 
creating a new bug report. It is fine to post updates and new 
information to an old bug report on behaviour which is still broken.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Easier way to jump to specific tab/register in main window

2023-12-12 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Thomas:

On 2023-12-12 11:47, Thomas wrote:

Hello there,

I always have a set of standard tabs/registers open in the main window
(GnuCash v5.4).
As it is quite a number of tabs in the meantime, it becomes rather
tiresome to scroll from one end to another is there a way to have a drop 
down
menu on the right instead of horizontal scrolling...


On my copy of GnuCash, I control-click on any of the tab in the row of 
tabs at the top of the GnuCash window. A menu pops down, listing all the 
open tabs. I select the tab I want. GnuCash moves to that tab and 
displays its contents.


I am using GnuCash 4.14-1 on macOS Monterey 12.7.1. If you are using 
Windows or Linux, and have a two-button mouse, the right mouse button 
might be what you need to click with.


See also the /GnuCash Guide/, section 2.3.5 Tab Bar 
<https://cvs.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-guide/basics-interface1.html>. 
This mentions the menu (a "list of tabs").


Does this help?
    —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada
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Re: [GNC] Definition of document root

2023-12-11 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-12-11 06:40, Brook Milligan wrote:


On Dec 10, 2023, at 9:53 PM, Jim DeLaHunt  wrote:

Have you looked through the bugs database[1][2] to see if there is
already an enhancement request for this behaviour?

I am not finding anything, but perhaps I am searching the wrong terms.


I had some success doing an advanced search for the phrase "document 
link", asking the search to require all search terms:


<https://bugs.gnucash.org/buglist.cgi?product=GnuCash&query_format=advanced&short_desc=document%20link&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr>

It finds 7 bugs, three with status "resolved", four with status "new". 
None of them mention Document Root in the summaries.


I suggest you file a bug report, mentioning "Document Root" and "link" 
in the Summary. That should make it discoverable. If you have questions 
about filing a bug report, please follow up here on the list, and we 
will try to help you clean it up.


Thank you for this idea!

Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Definition of document root

2023-12-10 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Good suggestion!

On 2023-12-10 19:17, Brook Milligan wrote:


...the root path for documents should be a book-specific, not a global, 
attribute
Does this make sense?  Am I missing the fact that this can already be done?  
Would it be hard to implement this?


That certainly makes sense to me. I have my documents root path set to 
be a sibling directory of my book file.  I only keep one book file, but 
if I kept multiple, I would certainly want a separate document directory 
for each.


Have you looked through the bugs database[1][2] to see if there is 
already an enhancement request for this behaviour?


[1] <https://bugs.gnucash.org/>, explained at [2]
[2] <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Bugzilla>

Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Finance::Quote not working on MacOS

2023-12-05 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Kunagu:

On 2023-12-05 22:35, kunagu varun kumar wrote:

Hi,

I cannot get Finance::Quote to get to working on my laptop. I’m getting an error 
"Failed to initialize Finance::Quote: missing_modules Finance::Quote”.

varun@Varun-Mac ~ % /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli 
--quotes info

Application Path /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/MacOS/gnucash-cli
Failed to initialize Finance::Quote: missing_modules Finance::Quote

varun@Varun-Mac ~ % sudo 
/Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-update

Password:
Reading '/Users/varun/.cpan/Metadata'
   Database was generated on Wed, 06 Dec 2023 00:17:01 GMT
Test2 is up to date (1.302198).
Finance::Quote is up to date (1.58).
JSON::Parse is up to date (0.62).


Recent macOS changes, such as the advent of Apple Silicon-based Macs, 
and increased security controls, have made the methods for installing 
Finance::Quote more complex, with variations for different situations.


Some questions you can answer to help us help you:

Q1. What version of GnuCash are you using?

Q2. What version of macOS are you using?

Also, read the following sections of the GnuCash wiki, and see if they 
apply to you:


<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Installing_Finance::Quote_on_macOS>

<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Multiple_Perl_installations_on_macOS>

<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes#Technical_details_on_macOS>

Does that help you progress?  Come back with answers to the above 
questions, and with questions based on reading the above sections of the 
wiki. Perhaps we will be able to help you some more.


Good luck!

    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] GnuCash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

2023-10-25 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

ion.


Your premise is faulty; GnuCash does not insist that smallest currency 
units are "exactly precise" according to your definition.  Your 
conclusion, "the number-of-shares is the only number which can be less 
than exactly precise due to rounding", is faulty. Any of the numbers 
reported by the broker can be imprecise, that is, be reported with a 
representation which does not convey the true numerical value.


However, in the broker statements I receive, I can check the transaction 
amount values and share quantity values and against other figures and 
confirm the exact numerical value. Usually the representations turn out 
to be precise. The price exists in isolation; I can confirm it only by 
reference to the transaction amount value and share quantity value of 
that transaction. It is common for the representation of the price to 
not precisely convey the numerical value of amount/quantity .




...Financial firms treat SCUs as exactly precise figures, and the 
number-of-shares, when required, as an approximation


Why do you believe that this assertion is true? Why do you reject the 
alternative assertion, that financial firms precisely represent 
transaction amount values and quantity of shares in their statements, 
and represent the price as an approximation?




In its internal calculations, GnuCash differs from financial firms in its 
treatment of the number-of-shares and the price-per-share figures.


This conclusion is correct only if your assertion is correct. I believe 
your assertion is incorrect, and that GnuCash agrees with financial 
firms in its treatment of the number-of-shares figures (as precise) and 
the price-per-share figures (as approximations).




...A financial statement assumes that the price per share is an exactly precise 
figure


This is the same assertion. I believe that it is incorrect. If this 
premise is invalid, the rest of your argument does not follow.




...From the viewpoint of the financial world, in general, the price per share 
is the exactly precise figure


This is the same assertion. I believe that it is incorrect. If this 
premise is invalid, the rest of your argument does not follow.




...Why are we doing this? We help ourselves, if we make GnuCash easy to 
understand and use. People unfamiliar with GnuCash conventions may find notes 
on how to understand GnuCash helpful
You are moving the goal posts. At the beginning of this thread, you were 
advocating that GnuCash change its arithmetic code, so that it would 
calculate different results. Now you are advocating that GnuCash change 
its documentation.  Better, but still based on a misunderstanding.




Suggestion
==
Could we consider putting some text into GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide, Part II. 
The Common Usage, Chapter 9. Investments, Buying Shares, Entering Preexisting Shares? The 
note currently says, "Note It is also possible to use GnuCash to calculate Shares or 
Buy from the other 2 columns. But to avoid rounding errors, it is better to automatically 
calculate Price." That Note could be amended...


There are many ways in which the GnuCash documentation could be 
improved. GnuCash is a project built largely of volunteer efforts. If 
you think it could be improved, the most useful contribution is to 
formally propose a change. See 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Contributing_to_GnuCash> to learn now.


But, a proposed change based on a misunderstanding will probably not 
succeed.



Bruce, why do you hold so fast to the conviction that the price number 
which the broker prints on the statement exactly represents the 
numerical value which they used in your transaction? I think that 
conviction is what keeping you from understanding the replies in this 
thread.


Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt

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[GNC] Bravo, Adrien, well explained! [was: Re: I need basic help]

2023-10-22 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bravo, Adrien!

You weren't writing this message for me, but you happened to write the 
explanation of "debit" and "credit" which I found very clear. I realise 
that this won't be the ideal explanation for everyone, but it was for me.


Thank you for helping me understand. And thank you to everyone who has 
taken the trouble to explain things on this -user list. You help more 
-users than perhaps you will know.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt, long-time GnuCash user who is about to start using 
"formal accounting labels"



On 2023-10-22 10:36, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

Edwin,

Debit/Credit is just Left/Right.



Maybe this will help...

The Accounting Equation:

Assets - Liabilities = Equity

(let's make all terms 'positive')

Assets = Liabilities + Equity

(now, we'll split off a subset of Equity)

Assets = Liabilities + Equity + Retained Earnings

(now, we'll substitute temporary accounts for Retained Earnings)

Assets = Liabilities + Equity + (Income - Expenses)

(now, we'll once again, make all terms 'positive')

Assets + Expenses = Liabilities + Equity + Income


And there, you have the full Accounting Equation with the five major 
account types that GnuCash uses.


-

In double-entry accounting, ALL transactions are in the form of:

Debit = Credit

Left = Right


The 'Debit' accounts (those that are normally (positive) a Debit 
balance, and increase with a Debit, decrease with a Credit) are on the 
left of the equation:


Assets
Expenses

The 'Credit' accounts (those that are normally (positive) a Credit 
balance, and increase with a Credit, decrease with a Debit) are those 
on the right of the equation:


Liabilities
Equity
Income

A negative balance in any account would indicate either an entry error 
or a contra-balance situation. (rare for individuals)


-
You can move funds from the left to the right, or vice versa, or 
between any accounts or types on the same side of the equation. (I 
will use the abbreviations Dr. and Cr. here)


Most texts will write transactions Debit first, then Credit as shown 
below. The amounts are not shown, because they *must* be equal.



Example Left to Right - Asset to Liability (paying down a debt)

Dr. Liabilities:Loan
  Cr. Assets:Cash

result: decreased Loan owed, decreased Cash on hand, Assets decreased, 
Liabilities decreased - equation still in balance




Example Right to Left - Income to Asset (receipt of income)

Dr. Assets:Cash
  Cr. Income:Salary

result: increased Cash on hand, increased Salary earned, Assets 
increased, Income increased - equation still in balance




Example Left to Left(same type) - Asset to Asset (buying land outright)

Dr. Assets:Land
  Cr. Assets:Cash

result: increased Land owned, decreased Cash on hand, Assets shifted - 
equation still in balance




Example Left to Left(different type) - Asset to Expense (buying 
groceries)


Dr. Expenses:Food
  Cr. Assets:Cash

result: increased Food expense, decreased Cash on hand, Expenses 
increased, Assets decreased - equation still in balance




Example Right to Right(same type) - Liability to Liability (paying 
down a loan with a credit card)


Dr. Liabilities:Loan
  Cr. Liabilities:Credit Card

result: decreased Loan owed, increased Credit Card owed, Liabilities 
shifted - equation still in balance




Example Right to Right(different type) - Equity to Liability 
(recognition of dividends to be paid - business transaction)


Dr. Equity:Retained Earnings
  Cr. Liabilities:Dividends Payable

result: decreased Retained Earnings, increased Dividends owed to 
shareholders, Equity decreased, Liability increased - equation remains 
in balance.




*it is rare and unusualy for an individual to shift Equity to 
Liabilities and vice versa. Forgiveness of Debt may in some 
jurisdictions be a transfer from Liabilities to Income.



Regards,
Adrien

On 10/20/23 12:02 AM, Edwin Booth via gnucash-user wrote:

I need to wrap my head around the whole “debit/credit” concept.


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Re: [GNC] conceptual errors and approximate numbers [was: Re: GnuCash_user: rounding errors and significant digits]

2023-10-08 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bruce:

On 2023-10-07 18:06, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...What I do not yet understand is if GnuCash considers a price per share of 
10.89 to be a precise figure, why GnuCash does not calculate 1,377.41 * 10.89 = 
15,000.00 for Jeff. If GnuCash doesn’t, would we consider making a change to 
GnuCash to allow it? ...


I believe that your first conceptual error is in your premise, "if 
GnuCash considers". You are missing the preceding step:


Why does Bruce McCoy assert what he asserts?

When Bruce McCoy reads a broker statement that a trade was "1,377.41 
shares, price 10.89, amount $15,000.00", why does Bruce consider the 
price per share of 10.89 to be a _precise_ figure, rather than an 
approximation?


Why does Bruce McCoy not engage with the arithmetic truth that the 
quantity "1,377.41 * 10.89" is not equal to the quantity "15,000.00"? 
The two quantities are approximately equal, but not exactly equal. Why 
does Bruce interpret this trade as:


   "1,377.41 * 10.89 = 15,000.00"

instead of

   "1,377.41 * 10.89 ≆ 15,000.00" (where "≆" means "approximately equal
   to but not equal to"?

Many people have told you, Bruce, that the practical way[*] to read this 
broker statement is as:


   "_exactly_ 1,377.41 shares, price _approximately_ 10.89, amount
   _exactly_ $15,000.00"

Then when entering the transaction to GnuCash, enter exactly 1,377.41 as 
the number of shares, exactly 15,000.00 as the amount of the 
transaction, and leave the price blank. GnuCash fills in a price of 
1500/137741, and stores that internally. GnuCash might display the 
price as either 10 + 5/137741 or $10.8900, depending on the currency 
and the user preferences, but remember that display and internal exact 
value need not be the same thing. (As indeed it probably is not, in the 
case of the broker's statement of price.)


For example, from this thread:

On 2023-10-07 13:06, john wrote:

...Jeff did it wrong. Jeff should enter the number of shares and the amount 
paid and let GnuCash calculate the price, because the price per share he paid 
wasn't 10.89, it was 137741/150. 137741 is the product of two primes, 181 
and 761, so 137741/150*cannot*  be exactly represented as a decimal. It's 
simpler to enter the amount and value than to enter an exact price


or,

On 2023-10-07 20:07, David Carlson wrote:

...What you do not understand is that John Ralls and GnuCash recommend
entering the total amount and the total number of shares and letting
GnuCash calculate the price. THEN there is no error in the account running
balance.  This is not going to change


So, Bruce, you titled this thread "rounding errors and significant 
digits". But the error I see revealed by this thread is not a rounding 
error by GnuCash, it is a conceptual error by you, in interpreting a 
logically inconsistent broker transaction report, and errors which 
follow from that interpretation.  I also see an error in failing to use 
GnuCash in the way which best fits the provided information, to record 
the transaction.


I have put a lot of effort into this thread. I am happy to help people 
get answers to questions about GnuCash by contributing to this list. 
However, I don't think this thread is about GnuCash any more. It is 
about your conceptual interpretation of logically inconsistent broker 
transaction reports. That is not a topic which I find valuable for the 
limited time I want to invest in this email list. Thus, I suspect I will 
lose interest in this thread going forward.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

[*] by "practical way", I mean in part that you can determine from the 
broker's other information that the values they give for the quantity of 
shares and the amount of the transaction are exact. For instance, if 
they say that a transaction puts $15,000.00 into your account, and if 
they reject your attempt to withdraw $15,000.01 due to insufficient 
funds, and if they tell you after withdrawing $14,999.99 that you have 
$0.01 left over, and if they tell you after withdrawing $15,000.00 that 
you have a zero cash balance, and if they don't allow cash transactions 
for partial cents, then you can be pretty sure that the $15,000.00 
amount they told you was an exact rather than approximate number.



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[GNC] Securities transactions, not Trial Balance [was: Re: GnuCash_user: rounding errors and significant digits]

2023-10-08 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

I fear that Bruce McCoy pushed this thread astray by introducing the 
phrase "books… out of balance". This moved the topic from GnuCash 
handling of securities transactions to GnuCash handling of the Trial 
Balance.


On 2023-10-06 09:39, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...
What are the plans to help our users whose books are out of balance by a cent 
or so? ...


Then John Ralls, and others, headed off in that direction:

On 2023-10-06 10:02, John Ralls wrote:

GnuCash's rounding isn't likely to put books out of balance because GnuCash 
forces transactions to be balance in the transaction currency. Book out of 
balance, meaning that the trial balance report doesn't balance with the Average 
Cost price source, nearly always results from not computing capital 
gains/losses correctly.


That led to discussion of cost of goods sold, and GnuCash not having 
support for cost accounting, and so on.


The digression does not strike me as helping Bruce understand what many 
on this list are trying to explain to him.




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Re: [GNC] gnucash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

2023-09-14 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bruce:

On 2023-09-14 14:51, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...Whatare some of the options available to GnuCash programmers today toimprove 
precision? Here is one group
[Long list of arithmetic libraries elided]
Wait, you skipped a step. You have still not demonstrated that the 
current implementation is wrong. I believe that for securities 
transaction, GnuCash gives a result which is both correct (satisfies the 
equation relating price, quantity, and amount) and precisely accurate 
(gives the require numbers with zero difference from the true result).  
Any other arithmetic library dropped into GnuCash would give exactly the 
same result.

Whatcan we do while awaiting a, say, decimal arithmetic or arbitraryprecision 
arithmetic software or some other excellent solution? Ifthe GnuCash community 
would like to have Gnucash software match thestatements from the investment 
firms calculating their holdings orthe members' own records, ...


This would be a great opportunity for you to answer the question I 
repeated to you last message:


On 2023-09-09 13:05, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

1. if your brokerage reports a transaction in terms of price, currency 
received and paid, and shares received and issued, which are logically 
inconsistent, how should you interpret that information? This is a 
step you have to take before entering the transaction into your 
bookkeeping.


But I see you skipped over it again.


Currently,given the cost of the transaction and the number of shares 
traded,GnuCash calculates the price per share. On occasion, the 
Gnucashcalculation results are unexpected. In our example at hand, ... if we 
could allow the user to enter $15.00, we wouldhave a solution, albeit a manual 
one.


Ah, maybe now we are getting somewhere.

GnuCash does allow you to enter the exact value of $15.00 for the 
transaction amount. You do not need to enter a price. Have you tried 
this in the GnuCash UI?


When you try to enter the example transaction at hand (broker sells 
2.396 of shares to pay a fee of $15.00), you are probably using the 
stock transaction register. The Tutorial and Guide[1], section 9.7. 
Selling Shares [2], explains this UI. Specifically, see Figure 9.21. 
"Selling Shares for Gain Where the Sale and Gain are Recorded in 
Separate Transactions, in Transaction Journal View"[3].


(These numbers in square brackets are footnootes to URLs. I put the full 
URLs at the bottom of the message to make this part easier to read.)


The second transaction if Figure 9.21 is similar to what you would enter.
1. The line with account "Assets:Bank ABC" has 0 in the Buy column, or 
you leave it out entirely. The example transaction at hand does not 
touch the cash account associated with this brokerage.
2. The line with account "Expenses:Commission:AMZN" would instead have 
the expense account you use to track the fee which your brokerage is 
charging, and has the value 15.00 in the Buy column.
3. The line with account "Assets:Brokerage Account:Stock:AMZN" is the 
one with the UI which matters here. When you enter the transaction, type 
"-2.396" in the Shares column, leave the Price column empty, and type 
"15.00" in the Sell column.


When you save the transaction, GnuCash will fill in the price for you. 
What I see it fill in is, "6 + 156/599". This is equal to the rational 
number 3750/599. We saw this number before, as the price which exactly 
relates 2.396 shares to the $15.00 transaction amount.


This UI is also explained in the Tutorial and Guide, section 9.5 Buying 
Shares[4]. It says there,


…On the first split line, enter *|100|* in *Shares*, delete the (unit) 
*Price* (it will be calculated when you *Tab* out of the split) and 
enter *|2000|* in the *Buy* column.


Note

It is also possible to use *|GnuCash|* to calculate *Shares* or *Buy* 
from the other 2 columns. But to avoid rounding errors, it is better 
to automatically calculate *Price*.


Have you tried entering this stock transaction without entering the 
price, and letting GnuCash calculate it for you?



...GnuCashcalculates $value = $price/share * #shares
Well, GnuCash will calculate whichever single value of these three that 
you do not enter, as long as you provide the other two. The recommended 
way to do it is to enter #shares and $value, and let GnuCash calculate 
$price/share .

...A screen showing thosethree results in data-entry fields instead of 
read-only fields wouldallow the user to change the aberrant result, which could 
be saved


The stock transaction register provides exactly these data-entry fields. 
They are not read-only. Do you see, in your copy of GnuCash, something 
similar to the UI depicted in Figure 9.21?


Also, have you read through all of Section 9 of the Tutorial and 
Concepts Guide?  Have you made a simple book for learning purposes, with 
made-up data, and followed along with the examples in the Gui

Re: [GNC] GnuCash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

2023-09-13 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello again, Bruce!

I can point out a logic error in your argument here.

On 2023-09-13 17:28, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...Yousay that 3750/599 is "the more accurate." How precise isit? Let's see.

2.396shares * (3750/599) $/share = 2.396 shares 
*6.260434056761268781302170283806343906510851419
3171953255425709515859766277128547579298831385642737 $/share
= $15.
06837852.
So, thefraction is accurate to 51 significant digits


By converting the rational number (3750/599) into a decimal number 
6.260434..., you introduce a numerical error. The decimal number,


    6.26043405676126878130 2170283806343906510 8514193171953255425 
709515859766277128 547579298831385642737


is equal to the rational number,

    626043405676126878130 2170283806343906510 8514193171953255425 
709515859766277128 547579298831385642737 / 1  
000 000 00 
0


This is a fraction in reduced form, since the numerator does not have 2 
or 5 as factors. (This is easy to tell by inspection, because integers 
with 2 as a factor have an even number as the final digit, and integers 
with 5 as a factor have 0 or 5 as the final digit.)


The above fraction does not have the same numerical value as the price I 
think is correct to use for your example transaction,


    3750/599

The inaccurate decimal number you use as the price leads to an 
inaccurate value for the resulting dollar amount. You show this 
inaccuracy in the result.


So, rather than changing the numerical value of the price before 
multiplying it by the number of shares, how about using that exact value?


2.396 = (2396/1000)  by the definition of decimal number notation

2.396 shares * (3750/599) $/share = (2396/1000)*(3750/599) = 
((4*599)/1000)*(3750/599)

    = ((4*1)/1000)*(3750/1) = (4*3750)/1000 = 15000/1000 = 15.00... $

Thus, when GnuCash derives the price from the number of shares and the 
transaction amount, and stores it as a rational number, it ensures that 
our basic relationship,


    $value = $price/share * #shares

is precisely satisfied.

You ask,


In September of 2003, we have a lot better options than Terry did in2000. What 
are some of the ones we prefer?
By my calendar, this is September of 2023 not 2003, and we have even 
better options available now than we did in 2003. However, the option 
GnuCash uses now seems to give correct, exactly precise answers. Why change?


By the way, you did not respond to my question,

On 2023-09-09 13:05, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
1. if your brokerage reports a transaction in terms of price, currency 
received and paid, and shares received and issued, which are logically 
inconsistent, how should you interpret that information? This is a 
step you have to take before entering the transaction into your 
bookkeeping.


I think that your answer to this question might really help you get to 
the bottom of what is driving you in this thread.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-09-13 17:28, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

Jim,

  


Inyour response of Mon, Aug 21, 2023 at 5:00 PM via GnuCash-user yousaid:




  "Logically,$value = $price/share * #shares, and this should be 
preciseequality."

  


  GnuCash“stores the price as a rational number, a ratio between numeratorand 
denominator,”




  "price= 15000/2396 = 3750/599 $/share...the more accurate 3750/599."

  


Let'ssee what GnuCash, excellent program that it is, does with the exact(price 
per share) fraction it was given to use. If GnuCash does thecalculation 
correctly, then

$value= $price/share * #shares will be a precise equality. If GnuCashdoes the 
calculation incorrectly, then

$value= $price/share * #shares will not be a precise equality.




Yousay that 3750/599 is "the more accurate." How precise isit? Let's see.

  


2.396shares * (3750/599) $/share = 2.396 shares 
*6.260434056761268781302170283806343906510851419

3171953255425709515859766277128547579298831385642737 $/share = 
$15.

06837852. 
So, thefraction is accurate to 51 significant digits. With 51 
significantdigits, one would be precise 
to$23,456,789,012,345,678,901,234,567,890,123,456,789,012,345,678,901.23.Even 
if you had only 17 significant digits, you could have aprecision up to 
$123,456,789,012,345.67. Ifyou asked me, even if I reached 100, my portfolio 
would never comeclose to even the much more modest, second estimate.)




Onmy Windows 10 machine, GnuCash shows 6 + 156/599 = 6.260434057$/share (10 
significant digits). In a spreadsheet preferencessetting, we see about the same 
number of significant digits. In thisexample, GnuCash is losing 41 significant 
digits. Why?

  


Inexpression-parser.c, we find that on Wednesday June 21 2000 Te

Re: [GNC] Who this "Jim" is, and intermittent delivery of gnucash-user posts [was: Re: gnucash_user: rounding errors and significant digits]

2023-09-09 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


I'm sorry, I made a mistake in my message below.

The Jim message which Bruce was quoting, in the Bruce message to which 
John replied, did in fact make it to the gnucash-user list archive[4], 
but in August, so of course it was not in the September archive[1].


Thus, the list archive is not evidence for intermittent delivery of my 
gnucash-user posts. Maybe there is in fact no delivery problem.


Sorry for the confusion,
    —Jim "Jim" DeLaHunt

[1] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-September/thread.html>
[4] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-August/108521.html>


On 2023-09-09 13:25, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:

On 2023-09-09 12:36, john wrote:

I don't know who this "Jim" is, their replies are not making it to the list


Oh dear. I spend time writing my messages to Bruce McCoy. It would be 
a pity if they didn't make it to the list.


This "Jim" is me, Jim DeLaHunt .

The Jim message which Bruce was quoting, in the Bruce message to which 
John replied, did not make it to the gnucash-user list archive[1].  
However, I did receive a copy of my reply via the gnucash-user email 
list[2] at the time. The reply which I sent to the Bruce message today 
did in fact get to the archive[3]. So maybe my messages are 
intermittently failing to reach some gnucash-user recipients?


Looking at the other headers, I wonder if maybe some spam detection 
services (ARC? SPF?) are intermittently raising false positives on 
some of my gnucash-user posts. I don't know how to interpret the 
headers of my gnucash-user replies to investigate that.


Best regards,
 —Jim "Jim" DeLaHunt

[1] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-September/thread.html>
[2] Some of the mail headers of the copy of my reply which I received 
from gnucash-user:



...
Received: from inbound-trex-4 (unknown [127.0.0.6])
by postfix-inbound-v2-8.inbound.mailchannels.net (Postfix) with ESMTP 
id C524B600069
for; Mon, 21 Aug 2023 21:01:05 + (UTC)
...
Received: from code.gnucash.org (code.gnucash.org [204.107.200.65])
(using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384)
by 100.112.2.51 (trex/6.7.2);
Mon, 21 Aug 2023 21:01:05 +
...
Received: from seahorse.cherry.relay.mailchannels.net
  (seahorse.cherry.relay.mailchannels.net [23.83.223.161])
  (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits)
  key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256)
  (No client certificate requested)
  by code.gnucash.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2FEE14B342
  for; Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:00:08 -0400 (EDT)
...


[3] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-September/108723.html>




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[GNC] Who this "Jim" is, and intermittent delivery of gnucash-user posts [was: Re: gnucash_user: rounding errors and significant digits]

2023-09-09 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-09-09 12:36, john wrote:

I don't know who this "Jim" is, their replies are not making it to the list


Oh dear. I spend time writing my messages to Bruce McCoy. It would be a 
pity if they didn't make it to the list.


This "Jim" is me, Jim DeLaHunt .

The Jim message which Bruce was quoting, in the Bruce message to which 
John replied, did not make it to the gnucash-user list archive[1].  
However, I did receive a copy of my reply via the gnucash-user email 
list[2] at the time. The reply which I sent to the Bruce message today 
did in fact get to the archive[3]. So maybe my messages are 
intermittently failing to reach some gnucash-user recipients?


Looking at the other headers, I wonder if maybe some spam detection 
services (ARC? SPF?) are intermittently raising false positives on some 
of my gnucash-user posts. I don't know how to interpret the headers of 
my gnucash-user replies to investigate that.


Best regards,
 —Jim "Jim" DeLaHunt

[1] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-September/thread.html>
[2] Some of the mail headers of the copy of my reply which I received 
from gnucash-user:



...
Received: from inbound-trex-4 (unknown [127.0.0.6])
by postfix-inbound-v2-8.inbound.mailchannels.net (Postfix) with ESMTP 
id C524B600069
for; Mon, 21 Aug 2023 21:01:05 + (UTC)
...
Received: from code.gnucash.org (code.gnucash.org [204.107.200.65])
(using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384)
by 100.112.2.51 (trex/6.7.2);
Mon, 21 Aug 2023 21:01:05 +
...
Received: from seahorse.cherry.relay.mailchannels.net
  (seahorse.cherry.relay.mailchannels.net [23.83.223.161])
  (using TLSv1.3 with cipher TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 (256/256 bits)
  key-exchange X25519 server-signature RSA-PSS (4096 bits) server-digest SHA256)
  (No client certificate requested)
  by code.gnucash.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 2FEE14B342
  for; Mon, 21 Aug 2023 17:00:08 -0400 (EDT)
...


[3] 
<https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2023-September/108723.html>


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Re: [GNC] gnucash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

2023-09-09 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Hello, Bruce:

I would like to reply to a few places in your detailed message where I
think I can clarify the argument.

On 2023-09-09 10:59, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

"he actual $value of this $price and #shares is $14.99896, a difference of
$0.00104."

At the moment, using these figures, GnuCash is (14.99896/15.000) * 100 =
99.9930666... % correct

I think you left out part of my statement, and so made an incorrect
conclusion. I wrote:

On 2023-08-21 14:00, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
Logically, $value = $price/share * #shares, and this should be precise
equality. But is possible for a brokerage statement to report values
which do not have precise equality. It sounds like Federated Hermes
reported $15.00 = $6.26 * 2.396, but the actual $value of this $price
and #shares is $14.99896, a difference of $0.00104.

You say that GnuCash is the entity which is "99.9930666... %
correct". I argued that it was Federated Hermes which was
"99.9930666... % correct. Before you worry about GnuCash's
handling of securities transactions, you should decide how you are going
to interpret the error of 0.0069...% in the brokerage statement's
numbers.

You continue,

On 2023-09-09 10:59, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

For the moment, let's discuss a minor point.

"GnuCash takes the position that price is approximate and transient, but currency received and paid, and shares received and issued, are exact and persistent. Thus a GnuCash securities transaction stores the number of shares and the currency value of the transaction, and derives the price as $value/#shares..."

In this minor point, the viewpoint that the smallest units of currency are considered exact both by
governments and their financial companies will be investigated. One conclusion will be that GnuCash should
consider "price" and "currency received" as exact figures. A second is that GnuCash
should consider "shares received and issued" as an approximation, although it is not always true

I believe you misunderstood my statement, in the quotation. I made no
comment about "the smallest units of currency". I said that "GnuCash
takes the position that... currency received and paid, and shares
received and issued, are exact and persistent." That is true regardless
of what the smallest unit of currency is.

You conclude, 'GnuCash should consider "price"... as exact figures.' No,
I said something quite different: "GnuCash takes the position that price
is approximate and transient...".

You conclude, 'GnuCash should consider "shares received and issued" as
an approximation, although it is not always true' No, I said
something quite different: "GnuCash takes the position that... shares
received and issued, are exact and persistent" — not an approximation.

You give an example:

On 2023-09-09 10:59, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...If someone were to ask us whether the way GnuCash treats the currency pricing is either
"approximate and transient" in the case of $6.26 per share or "exact and
persistent" in the case of the $15.00 annual account fee, what could our answer be? Buying
one share will cost 626 pennies. The annual fee is 1,500 pennies. Other than the quantity of
them, what is the essential difference in the pennies used to purchase a share and the pennies used
to pay the fee?

Our answer to your first question should be, "approximate and
transient". Buying one share costs (the currency value of the
transaction) divided by (the number of shares received and issued).
Thus, buying one share in this transaction costs 3750/599 $/share. The
brokerage statement's printed price of $6.26 per share is an
approximation of the actual price which the brokerage charged you. Our
answer to your second question should be, that you are using one word,
"pennies", to describe two different quantities — price, and currency
paid — and thus obscuring the essential difference that the first
quantity is by design derived from the second quantity.

Now on to the logical leap you make later in your message:

On 2023-09-09 10:59, Bruce McCoy via gnucash-user wrote:

...We could say "GnuCash takes the position that price is approximate and transient,
but currency received and paid, and shares received and issued, are exact and
persistent." Essentially that is how we have always considered the matter.

Is "We have always done it this way." a compelling response? ...

Yes, I think the first quote is an accurate statement of GnuCash's
design for recording securities transactions. The second statement,
"that is how we have always considered the matter", is a claim about
history.

Re: [GNC] GNC csv import not displaying letters correctly from original file

2023-08-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt



On 2023-08-29 14:42, avigr...@juno.com wrote:

Version: 4.12
Build ID: 4.12+(2022-09-24)Windows 11 computer When I import a csv file that 
contains Hebrew letters in the Description field, the letters display as 
question marks.  I changed the Import Encoding to Hebrew (Windows-1255).  Is 
there something else I need to do?


Ah, text file encoding problems!

What is the character encoding of the CSV file?  Are the bytes in that 
file indeed in the Windows-1255 encoding? Or are they perhaps in UTF-8?


It is important that the Import Encoding which you select match the 
actual encoding of the file you are importing.


I hope this is helpful, and not too self-evident.

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] gnucash_user: rounding errors and significant digits

2023-08-21 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

 
* 2.396 = $14.99896, not the stated value $15.00.


I would characterise this as, mutual funds seem to treat the amount of 
the local currency tendered and the number of shares as decimal numbers 
of exact precision, and the price as an approximation.  Certainly, it 
will help you understand GnuCash's recording of these transactions if 
you think of it that way.


...Why do we not ...incorporat[e] more significant digits in the 
calculations? InEdit > Preferences > Numbers, Date, Time > Numbers 
>Force Prices to display as decimals, the maximum number of 
decimalplaces one can display is only 8 (eight). If this is close to 
thenumber of significant digits gnucash is currently using, could it 
bethat we might consider using, instead of, say, double 
binaryfloating-point method, a decimal floating-point arithmetic...


Note that you are talking about increasing the actual precision of 
numbers used in calculation, but the spreadsheet preferences setting you 
mention controls only the _display_ of numbers, not the actual precision 
of the numbers.


GnuCash stores the price as rational numbers, which can have precisely 
the correct value. Floating-point numbers, no matter the precision, will 
always be approximations. A floating-point number cannot exactly store 
the value of one-third (1/3), but a rational number can.


...Whydo we not avoid rounding errors? Why do we not enjoy the 
accuracyand precision that everyone else can? Well, we can increase 
theprecision of our calculations by increasing the number of 
significantdigits in the decimal representations of our numerical 
data. Bruce


From what you have presented, it looks to me like GnuCash has 
sufficient precision to record your transactions. I suggest that path 
forward is 1. to think differently about what is fundamental in these 
transactions, and 2. to be sure that you have the security's "fraction 
traded" set correctly in your books.


Does that help?

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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[GNC] Problem with losing personal limits on transfer choices [was: Re: MacBook Pro problems]

2023-08-18 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Welcome to the GnuCash-user email list, Grant!

On 2023-08-18 12:20, Grant Neie via gnucash-user wrote:

I have been a GnuCash user for years using various Windows devices, but have 
recently started using a MacBook Pro and have experienced several problems


You don't explicitly ask for help solving these problems. Are you 
looking for solutions, or are you just reporting your experiences for 
the list's information?


In either case, with your experience using computers I'm sure you will 
know that some key information will help clarify your reports. What 
version of GnuCash did you use on Windows?  What version are you using 
now, on MacOS? How did you transfer your data from the old computer to 
the new?



  The initial installation did not allow personal limits of transfer choices so 
that I waste a lot of time scrolling through a long list unless I remember the 
exact choice to manually enter it. I am a simple user and have no need of the 
plethora of choices.


I am not sure what you mean by "transfer choices", or "personal limits" 
of transfer choices.  Where do these transfer choices come into play?  
Do you mean, when you are entering a transaction, and you click in the 
column for the other account in the transaction, the list of possible 
account names which appear as a pop-up menu? If so, I would call that 
the "account selection list". Are you familiar with the option to type 
parts of the account names, and the ":" which separates account names, 
to winnow this list?


And, where do you recall setting limits on these transfer choices? Was 
it perhaps part of the preferences of the GnuCash app?  In that case, 
finding the exact UI pane where you set these choices would help you use 
the terminology that will point others to the feature.


If the limits are indeed part of your personal user preferences, then 
maybe none of your personal preferences got migrated from your Windows 
computer to your Mac when you transferred your book file. If that is the 
case, then there is a page on the GnuCash wiki about how to migrate all 
of your preferences, reports, customisations, etc. from one computer to 
another. That information might help you.



...Secondly, the totals listed for some of the accounts in the summary window 
are much higher than what the actual account has for the last entry’s running 
total


Another tip for getting good results from an email list like this is to 
limit each discussion thread to one topic. It looks like you are 
encountering two different problems. I suggest raising this second 
problem in a separate email thread, with a second (and descriptive) 
Subject: line.



 Here now, I am confused as to why GnuCash programmers don’t let me keep it 
simple, but, like a lot of programs now, insist on loading the system down with 
controls that seem to be making the choices for me


Finally, please don't blame the GnuCash programmers for trying to load 
your system down and to make choices for you. Believe me, they have 
nothing against you personally. They are volunteers, writing complex 
software which you are free to use without paying for it. They implement 
features which empower a range of users, not just you, to get a variety 
of work done. And, when there is complexity, there is often a path 
through the complexity… but it is up to us users to read the 
documentation and educate ourselves about how to find that path.


And, if you want software with fewer capabilities which does what you 
want more simply, you are welcome to make it happen. The source code of 
GnuCash is freely available to you. You can learn how to program that 
code, modify the application, and make your own variant which keeps 
things simple for you. Of course, modifying an application like GnuCash 
is hard work. Aren't we grateful to the skilled people who do that work 
for us, for free?


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] finance Quote Not working

2023-08-06 Thread Jim DeLaHunt

Paras:

On 2023-08-06 01:21, Paras Desai wrote:
...I tried to run the command prompt, and I received the following
message.

I run command from as an administrator, the same message received as
below.

gnucash-cli' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

This message indicates a problem not with GnuCash or Perl, but of
learning how to use the command prompt. The message says that Windows
cannot find a file named "gnucash-cli" in the current directory. You fix
the problem by using the full path and exact filename for the GnuCash
command.

Use File Explorer to find the directory where GnuCash is installed, and
a file named something like "gnucash-cli.exe" in that directory. Note
the full file path to that directory.

Suppose that path is:

C:\Program Files\GnuCash\gnucash-cli.exe

(I don't use GnuCash on Windows, so I am not sure what the exact path
and file name are.)

Then in place of "gnucash-cli", use that full path and file name. For
instance:

C:\Program Files\GnuCash\gnucash-cli.exe -V --quotes dump nseindia RELIANCE

That should give you the output similar to my example. If you get the
same error message as before, then there is probably something wrong in
the path or the file name.

Learning more about using the Windows command prompt is a separate task,
and one that will probably help you for more things than just GnuCash.
According to a brief web search, here are a couple of pages that explain
the Windows Command Prompt:

<https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a-beginners-guide-to-the-windows-command-line/>
<https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/windows-commands>

Teaching details about the Windows command prompt is out of the scope of
this list. A Windows support group would be a better place to learn
about it.

Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt

Re: [GNC] finance quote not working

2023-08-04 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Paras:

On 2023-08-04 06:23, Paras Desai wrote:

Hello Jim,

Thanks for replying to my query regarding "Finance Quote Not Working"

My response to  your questions are as below

1. I am looking to update prices of Stocks and mutual Fund both _from
   India__only_. After I created stock account and mutual fund account,
   the prices of all mutual funds and stocks updated successfully
   twice. ( last update was on 26-7-2023) , there after update is not
   working . For example, I have tried to update following stock
    1. Reliance Industry : Ticker is "RELIANCE", listed at NSEIndia
    2. Infosys : Ticker is INFY listed at NSEindia

So far, Mutual fund is concerned, following is an example of the fund

            1. Axis Special Situation Fund , symbol for fetching price
   is INF846K01Y05


2. my source for fetching prices are as below ( from the options 
offered by GNUcash)


Stock : Type of quote source --> Unlnown --> nseindia-->time zone (local)

Mutual Fund: Type of quote Source --> Single--> India Mutual --> time 
zone (local)


both the sources were working fine, prices were updating successfully 
till 26-7-2023, but thereafter , they are not working.



Excellent. That is helpful information. Next, try testing quote 
retrieval from the command line. If this succeeds, then your problem is 
probably inside GnuCash. If this fails, then the problem is probably 
with the Finance::Quote software bundled with GnuCash, or with the data 
source, or with the configuration.


Instructions for testing quote retrieval from the command line are at: 



The command looks something like:

gnucash-cli -V --quotes dump nseindia RELIANCE

On my older version (4.14) of GnuCash, with an older version of the 
command, I get:


% /Applications/Gnucash.app/Contents/Resources/bin/gnc-fq-dump nseindia RELIANCE

Finance::Quote fields Gnucash uses:

    symbol: RELIANCE <=== required

  date: 08/04/2023   <=== recommended

  currency: INR  <=== required

  last: 2508 <=\

   nav:  <=== one of these

 price:  <=/

  timezone:  <=== optional

I hope this helps you get another step further forward.




3. I am using following version ( as it appears in help--> about menu 
of GNU Cash)


Version : 5.3
Finance Quote : 1.57
I am using Window 10 home

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Re: [GNC] Finance quote does not update price [was: Re: Stock assist does not post transaction, Finance quote does not update price]

2023-08-03 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Paras:

On 2023-08-02 22:28, Paras Desai wrote:

I am from India.


Welcome to GnuCash! I hope you will find answers among the helpful 
volunteers and fellow users on this list.



This is my second attempt to post the issue but without any reply.

Will any one pay attention and try to help me , or I have to give up!
I saw your earlier message, but it had an empty Subject: line. It is 
always good in email lists to put in a meaningful Subject: line. It is 
also good to limit yourself to one question or subject per email thread. 
I changed the Subject: line to deal with just one of your questions. I 
suggest that you re-send your message about the other topic under its 
own Subject: line, so it makes its own discussion thread.



When i try to post stock purchase transaction, even though i finish without 
error, the transaction does not get posted.

It appears the stock assist features has more of cosmetic value than functional.
I am not going to attempt to answer this. I suggest you start a separate 
thread with this topic.

Since 26th the finance quote does not update price. When I press get quote 
button, program runs without error but fails to update quote.


Let's investigate this a little.

Firstly, could you please give some more detail?  For what securities 
are you looking up prices?  It matters a lot whether it is, say, a US 
company's stock vs a Japanese government bond.


Secondly, what source have you told GnuCash to contact for your price 
data? There has been a lot of list discussion recently about one source 
ending its free service, and another being ambiguous for some securities.


Thirdly, what version of GnuCash are you using, and what OS and version 
is your computer using?


Have you read the information at 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Online_Quotes>? Particularly, try the 
steps in the Troubleshooting section.


I hope this helps you move forward.

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt, from Canada

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Re: [GNC] Ideas and recommendations for community project

2023-07-30 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Sebastian:

Welcome to GnuCash! I hope it works well for you.

On 2023-07-30 22:28, gibel...@gmx.net wrote:

I have recently started using gnuCash and am trying to figure out if I
can use gnuCash in a meaningful way to map the cash flows in a community
project. I think I understand the basic concepts through the tutorial
and with a test project, but am still looking for ideas and
recommendations for some specific circumstances. …[details elided]…


How about this as a first thought: do you understand the accounting 
aspect of your questions, separate from how to use GnuCash to perform 
the accounting?  Do you have an idea of which of these things you want 
to track are assets, liabilities, income, or expenses?  Do you have an 
idea of how you would track these if doing bookkeeping on paper sheets 
with lots of columns?


If you do not, then you will probably be greatly helped by learning some 
basic accounting. For instance, you could read this textbook, 
/Principles of Accounting/, Vol 1 
<https://openstax.org/details/books/principles-financial-accounting>, 
which is free to read online. Once you understand the accounting aspect 
of these things you want to track, it will be easier to understand how 
to use GnuCash.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt
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Re: [GNC] Upgrading to 5.3 from 2.6.15

2023-07-25 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-07-24 16:07, larry johnston wrote:


I have decided to upgrade to the current version.…
I have been looking at the FAQ's but I haven't found anything on upgrading
from one version to another. Where would I be looking for the best
information?


Try <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Installation#Upgrading>.

Having read that, then maybe 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Using_Different_Versions.2C_Up_And_Downgrade> 
will make more sense.


If you still have questions, please ask. Good luck!
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Transaction line debit/credit in split view

2023-07-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-07-23 11:54, john wrote:

https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=799041 coomplains that the transaction 
line in split view shows the amount for the anchor split in the register 
account in the Tot Debit or Tot Credit columns instead of the value in the 
transaction currency as is shown in the single-line view. He proposes that the 
transaction line in split view should also show the value in the transaction 
currency, that is shares * price.

Does anyone have an opinion about this?


I feel like I ought to have an opinion about this, since my book has 
several currencies and securities, and the handling of securities and 
currencies regularly surprises me. But in reading the bug 799041 
discussion, I have a hard time following the issue. Part of the problem 
is that my small laptop screen means I can't refer to the screen shots 
while I read discussion text.  I may do better if when I open the bug 
discussion on a system with multiple, large monitors.


Cheers,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Help with counters problem

2023-07-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Dave:

On 2023-07-23 10:33, Dave Carlin via gnucash-user wrote:
…I have recently moved my Gnucash installation from an old Windows 7 
pc to my new shiny windows 11.
… I wanted to continue with the various counters that I had been 
using, e.g. bill, invoice, employee, customer counts etc. So I had to 
manually enter the various counts into File >> Properties >> 
Counters.  All fine so far.
Now, every time I create a new Bill, Invoice, Customer etc the count 
resets back to zero and the next item I'm creating starts at 1.

…I'm running on Windows 11, MySQL 8.0


What version of GnuCash are you using on the shiny new Windows 11?

How did you install GnuCash? Did you run an installer, or did you copy 
the GnuCash application files from the old computer to the new?


And what option are you using to store your data file? XML, compressed 
XML, SQL backend?


Can you reproduce this problem on a new, largely empty GnuCash file? If 
so, then that file will be helpful for others who want to diagnose the 
problem.


I hope this helps to get you useful assistance.

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] How to record payments for several items paid with a single transaction?

2023-07-23 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Chris:

On 2023-07-23 05:55, Chris Green wrote:

You should record the cash income from the various collections etc to the
Assets:Current Assets:Cash via the appropriate Income: account as you receive
it (or as you count up the cash in the bags), preferably with the date
on which the collection took place. When you eventually come to make the
deposit into your current bank account, this is simply recorded as a transfer
between two asset accounts - it is no longer income, any more than paying
off your credit card bill from your current account needs to be accounted
for as Expenditure (in this case you are transferring money from an asset
account (your bank) to a liability account (your credit card).


So I need two sets of Income sub-accounts then.  One records the cash
deposits into Assets:Current Assets:Cash and the other ones record
donations made direct to Assets:Current Assets:Bank.…


Why do you need two sets of Income sub-accounts?  If there is an income 
sub-account for all donations of a certain type, be they cash donations 
at an event or cheques sent to the church, then use this same income 
sub-account in transactions involving cash deposits into Assets:Current 
Assets:Cash and donations made direct to Assets:Current Assets:Bank.



…The most important thing from my point of view is the ability to
present accounts to the diocese where all donations of a particular
type are collected together.… I need a single sub-account where I can see
*all* money of a particular type regardless of how it got there.…
If you want to show the diocese all donations of a particular type, then 
that single income sub-account for all donations of that type will have 
entries for "*all* money of a particular type regardless of how it got 
there".


As Stan Brown said, this is a simple situation, but this thread is 
having a hard time finding the words which will let the simplicity shine 
through.


Also, some of your questions seem to be actually about accounting and 
bookkeeping, rather than about using GnuCash. GnuCash claims to be an 
efficient way to do double-entry bookkeeping, but it does not claim to 
protect you from having to understand double-entry bookkeeping. If you 
have not already, I recommend that you:


 * read the entire GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide
   <https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>,
 * make a simple, largely empty GnuCash book file as a place to simply
   do experiments, so that you can try things without endangering your
   actual data, and
 * get an introductory book on accounting (maybe on accounting for
   churches and non-profits) and read a few chapters

I hope this helps clarify things for you.
    —Jim DeLaHUnt

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Re: [GNC] Online Banking Setup

2023-07-16 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, John, and welcome to GnuCash!

On 2023-07-16 15:39, John M. Thornton wrote:


Good afternoon,

I just wanted to inquire if anybody is able to use the Online Banking Setup
with Gnucash and how easy it was to set up within North America.  I
have tried to follow some wiki information and also looked at the setup for
my banks but it just doesn't seem to work.  I am able to download either
QIF or OFX files and do that, just was looking for something maybe a little
easier similar to how Quicken used to do it.

I am using Windows 11, GnuCash 5.3 for reference


I am guessing that want to use Online Banking itself, and the Online 
Banking Setup is just a necessary step in preparation. The term I use 
for this interaction is OFXDirectConnect, which is the name of the 
protocol which actually does the information exchange.  If you have not 
already read the wiki page, 
<https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Setting_up_OFXDirectConnect>, I recommend 
it to you.


Yes, I have used Online Banking via OFXDirectConnect for some banks and 
credit cards in the USA and Canada in the past. I no longer use it, 
because entering my transactions manually works better for me.


My experience is that how easy or difficult it is to set up 
OFXDirectConnect is entirely a function of the bank or credit card 
company. Most don't bother to offer the service. Those that do, tend to 
offer it in idiosyncratic ways which require you to figure out what 
combinations of settings will be just right let the connection work. 
And, they tend not to describe what they require very well.


The web site OFX Home <https://www.ofxhome.com/> lists the required 
connection settings for some 300 banks and companies. If that company to 
which you want to connect is described there, correctly, then setting up 
a connection is easier. If it is not there, then it will probably be 
difficult to figure out.


Does that answer your question?

Best regards,
   —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Importing data from QuickBooks Online

2023-07-02 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Tom:

On 2023-07-02 15:10, Tom Olin via gnucash-user wrote:

I’m attempting to import data from QuickBooks Online to GnuCash. I’ve written 
an awk script which appears to work well except for one major issue.


What format is the data which you export from Quickbooks Online? CSV 
(Comma Separated Values text files with tabular data)? QFX (Quicken 
Financial Exchange, similar to OFX)?


What GnuCash version are you using? On what computer OS?

What GnuCash sequence of actions do you use to import the data?



The data I’m importing spans the years 2022 and 2023. All 2023 transactions 
import cleanly, but all 2022 transactions import unbalanced, meaning I have to 
manually match up each of them - doable but tedious.


Let's assume you are exporting data in CSV format, and using the current 
version of GnuCash (5.3), and importing using the File… Import… Import 
Transactions from CSV menu item. You should be directed through an 
import matcher. This is the place where GnuCash should assign accounts 
to balance each transaction. Is each transaction assigned to an account 
in the import matcher?


Have you read the section of the documentation explaining how to import 
data?



Can anyone think of anything that would cause this behavior? I’ve ruled out 
Accounting Period. I’ve imported each year separately. I’ve exported each year 
separately from QBO. The behavior persists.

I’m stumped. Any ideas?


I hope these questions help get enough information on the table to give 
someone ideas.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Question about billing

2023-07-01 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-07-01 15:23, C H wrote:

Hello,

I downloaded GNUcash a couple weeks ago and I've been gradually entering
past data,


Hello, C H, and welcome to GnuCash!

This is a good type of question for the gnucash-user list, and you will 
find many people here ready to try and help you.


We can help you more if you give us some basic information:

 * For what are you doing bookkeeping: for your personal finances, for
   a business, for something else?
 * What version of GnuCash are you using?
 * What operating system are you using?


… and there's something I keep running into that I'm hoping
someone here can give me advice about. When I create bills, I frequently
want some expenses to count to one period, and some to count to another.
For example, when I enter a credit card bill, statements are generated
halfway through the month. Half of expenses might be from May and the other
half from June. The only way I've found to make expenses match the right
period is to create two invoices. It feels like there must be a better way.


You mention "bills" and "invoices". These terms normally refer to 
GnuCash features which apply to bookkeeping for a business. But you also 
"credit card" "statements". Typically these are are entered as routine 
internal transactions of a person or business, and do not use the 
GnuCash features of "bills" and "invoices".


When you say "enter a credit card bill", do you mean that you hold a 
monthly statement for a particular credit card in your hand, and you are 
entering into GnuCash information about the purchases and payments 
charged to that credit card and listed on that statement?  If so, the 
normal way to do that is to create a GnuCash "account" corresponding to 
that credit card, and then enter each individual purchase or payment as 
a separate GnuCash "transaction" in the credit card's GnuCash "account". 
Each transaction has its own date, some in May, some in June. What you 
do with the monthly statement for the credit card is to "reconcile" it 
with your bookkeeping of the transactions, making sure that your books 
list exactly the same transactions as the statement lists. There is no 
need to use the GnuCash "bills" and "invoices" features.




I tried entering each transaction through journal entries, but it was
cumbersome, prone to mistakes, and then I lost the ability to view
information about my credit card bills on the vendor report page.

Is there an easier way to match expenses to the right period?


If you have not yet read the "GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide" 
<https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=guide>, I strongly 
recommend that you put down your statement and read that Guide first. 
See especially section 7. "Credit Cards". You might find it helpful to 
create an separate GnuCash file just for experimentation. Once you do 
the experiments to see how to enter credit card transactions into 
GnuCash using the separate file, then open your main bookkeeping file 
and do the actual data entry.


Best regards,

    —Jim DeLaHunt, from Vancouver, Canada

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Re: [GNC] How to Upgrade Old GnuCash Version to Current Version

2023-06-08 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-06-08 17:20, flywire wrote:


A lot of discussion in the mailing list about this subject but there
doesn't seem to be anything in the docs.
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2021-January/094704.html
suggests most of the discussion is misplaced.


I don't read the message by John Ralls at 
 
as saying that most of the discussion about how to upgrade from old 
GnuCash version to new is "misplaced".


In that message, John was replying to a questioner 
 
who had special circumstances: a GnuCash data file created a long time 
ago with an old version, made from an import of an even longer history 
in Quicken, followed by not much activity in the GnuCash data file. The 
specific question was whether it was worth upgrading the old GnuCash 
data file, or if it was better to abandon it and start the import from 
Quicken from scratch.


I note that John's reply has the caveat, "Since you didn't actually use 
GnuCash much….".


Much of the discussion about upgrading data files, created with old 
GnuCash versions, for use with current GnuCash versions is about data 
files which had long and extensive use of GnuCash. It is plausible that 
such data files should follow the careful route of upgrading via each 
final release of a major version of GnuCash, as D. (sunfish62) explains 
at 
.


Best regards,
    —Jim
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Re: [GNC] Rounded Up/Down Share Purchase with Dividend

2023-06-07 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, xboxboy.magela:

You ask how to account for the $2 that has "vanished". This jumps out at 
me as the core of the problem:



Dividend (franked): Dividend reinvestment account $10
Buy: stock purchase: 1 unit $8, total buy $8
If your dividend after franking is $10, and you buy stock for $8, then 
there should be $2 cash left over. You do not show that left over cash 
in your transaction. Where does that money go in real life?  Add a line 
for that in your transaction, and it should balance.


Does this answer your question?

Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, Canada

On 2023-06-07 08:01, xboxboy.mageia+GnuCash wrote:

Hi guys,

My issue is this: I'll provide an example: Note, I'm in Australia, so 
we have franked (taxed) dividends that we claim a tax break on.


Total dividend $12; made up of

Franked dividend $10

Imput credit (tax credit) $2

(So in this example $2 is paid to the tax office by the company, and I 
receive only $10)


But I reinvest this dividend: Say the shares are $8.

That means with my $10, I can get 1.25 shares, but it gets rounded 
down/up to the nearest share.


So I get one share for a cost of $8.

So normally I'd enter it like this:

Expense: tax credit $2

Dividend (franked): Dividend reinvestment account $10

Buy: stock purchase: 1 unit $8, total buy $8

Total dividend income $12

Cost of share(s) $8 (normally from that dividend reinvestment account)

(but now I'm $2 unbalanced)

How do I account for the $2 that has now 'vanished'. With my other 
companies, this amount gets put into an account, and I get to apply it 
to the next dividend. But with this company, they don't do that, the 
amount is simply 'gone'.


Hope that makes sense, any ideas most appreciated,


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Re: [GNC] from James Baxter to do with bank charge

2023-05-11 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, James Baxter:

On 2023-05-11 10:55, James Baxter via gnucash-user wrote:

As I am James Baxter, email address is kangaro...@yahoo.com.  I am looking at 
the bank statement and have a bank service charge. It is not listen in the 
statement. as I must be charded for it. So when I add it to the line. it dont 
seen to work.I am looking to use the screen that said is there a bank interset. 
 I tsaid you cant send it to the same account.  it is coming up with credit to 
credit. so that dont work for me.

HelpJames Baxter


I am confident that people on this list would like to help, but it is 
not clear to me what you mean in your message.


1. You included a screen grab, which helpful, but the most interesting 
part of the GnuCash UI in the image is obscured by a file save dialogue. 
It will help for you to redo the screen grab, but make sure there is no 
file save dialogue in the image, just GnuCash UI.


2. You say, "I am looking at the bank statement", but it appears from 
the screen grab that you are working with a credit card account. In 
GnuCash, accounts related to credit cards behave differently in some 
important ways from accounts related to bank savings and chequing 
accounts.  Is the statement you are describing a bank account statement 
or a credit card statement.


3. You say, "…have a bank service charge. It is not listen in the 
statement. as I must be charded for it." I believe that when you say 
"it" here, you mean the bank service charge.  Are you saying that there 
is a bank service charge, and that the bank service charge is not listed 
in the statement, and the reason that the charge is not listed is that 
you must be charged for the bank service charge?  I don't understand 
what you mean. Maybe try rewording your situation without using the word 
"it". That will help you be more explicit in describing your situation.


4. You say, "…I am looking to use the screen that said is there a bank 
interset." When you say "the screen", I think you mean a dialogue box in 
the GnuCash UI, but I don't know which dialogue box you are referring 
to. Dialogue boxes have a title at the top. It would perhaps be clearer 
if you would use that title in your explanation.


5. You say, "…I tsaid you cant send it to the same account.  it is 
coming up with credit to credit." You are using the word "it" three 
times there. I am not sure what you are referring to with the word "it". 
I suspect that you are referring to different things each time you 
re-use the word "it". Again, maybe try rewording your situation without 
using the word "it".


I hope this is helpful to you in making your situation understood, and 
getting assistance from someone on this list.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] corporate profit tax ........... where to put

2023-05-08 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Karl:

This sounds like an accounting question to me, not a GnuCash question?  
How would your account advise you to track these transactions if you 
were using a pen and paper accounting book? You can do it the same way 
in GnuCash.


I am a bit surprised by your statement, "that gnucash has no separate 
Equity account". I see a top-level account "Equity" in my Chart of 
Accounts, and a whole tree of other accounts below it. Also, when I pay 
tax, I involve an account of type Expense for the transaction, e.g. an 
account like

    Expense:My Business:Tax:Income Tax

I understand that accounts of Expense and Income are special cases of 
Equity accounts. But that too is an accounting question, not a GnuCash 
question.


I hope this helps,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-05-07 23:37, Karl May wrote:

Hi,

I am wondering where to put the tax on corporate profit.

My understanding from accounting training is:

1) As long as not paid it would swap between Equity and Liability, i.e. the
equity shrinks by the tax amount and the liabilities increase by the tax
amount.

2) At pay date it would be an asset-liability decrease, i.e. financial assets
and liabilities shrink by the tax amount.

Now . I understand that gnucash has no separate Equity account, at
least as long as the books are not closed. So how to book step 1)?

Thanks and best regards

Karl


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Re: [GNC] Downloading GnuCash onto a Mac Pro

2023-05-02 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Edwin:

Welcome to GnuCash, and welcome to the Mac! I have been using GnuCash on 
Mac for many years. It works well.


Using GnuCash on Mac has no connection with Linux. The GnuCash project 
makes a Mac version of the GnuCash app. That is what you should use.


First, download the right thing. On the front page of the GnuCash 
website, <https://www.gnucash.org/>, there is a link, 'Apple macOS ≥ 
10.13—"High Sierra"'. Click on that link. The browser offers to download 
a file named "Gnucash-Intel-5.1-1.dmg" or similar (the details may 
differ depending on the current GnuCash version).


Second, know where to find the thing you downloaded. This is a matter of 
knowing how your web browser works. I have my web browser set up so that 
it always asks me to tell it where to store each file it downloads. I 
believe that the default behaviour of most web browsers is to store the 
file in a folder named "Downloads" in your home directory. Finder will 
get you to your home directory, then to Downloads.


Third, install the app. Double-click on the ".dmg" file. An installer 
runs. Follow its instructions.


Fourth, run the app. The installer places the GnuCash app in your 
Applications folder. Use Finder to open the Applications folder. Look 
for an entry named "GnuCash". Double-click on that app to run it.


Does that answer your question?
 —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-05-02 15:13, Edwin Booth wrote:

Hi all. Newbee here. Both to GnuCash and to Macs! I’ve wanted to try
GnuCash for a long time but never launched Linux. So now I have a MacPro
laptop and have tried (several times) to download GnuCash on it. It seems
to download (it certainly took several minutes to complete it) but now I
cannot find it anywhere in order to install it. This may be more of an
Apple issue than a GnuCash one, but can someone help me please?

Thanks, Edwin
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Re: [GNC] Starting balance of new account is not $0

2023-04-26 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Rich:

You have received several replies, but I have a sense that some of them 
are talking past you. The issue may be that the term "Starting Balance" 
can mean multiple things in GnuCash.


On 2023-04-26 06:09, Rich James wrote:

I'm trying to resolve some reconciliation issues and decided to go back to
my first statement from last year when I opened the account to establish
that everything is balanced.  However, when I start to reconcile and put in
the statement date and ending balance, the reconciliation window shows a
Starting Balance of several hundred dollars instead of $0.  This gives me
an incorrect difference that I can't properly clear.

Is there a known issue where this can occur?  Or can anyone suggest a way
to resolve this?  I'm seeing similar behavior with another account as well.


"Starting Balance" meaning 1: Another term for "Opening Balance". In the 
account register, the running total amount after the first transaction.  
If you told the GnuCash "New Account" setup dialogue[1] that an account 
which you are creating has a non-zero Opening Balance, then GnuCash 
creates the first transaction in this account, with the "Opening 
Balance" amount in the new account, and an offsetting amount in the 
Equity:Opening Balances account.


"Starting Balance" meaning 2: The value shown in the "Reconcile Window", 
bottom right corner, labelled "Starting Balance". This is no more or 
less than the sum of all transactions in that account which are marked 
as "Reconciled". As Derek Atkins pointed out,



You cannot go "back in time" to reconcile.  When you reconcile an account
at date X, you are reconciling from "the beginning of time" to date X.
You cannot then go back to a date earlier than X to (re)reconcile.
Rich, I think you are using meaning 2 when you say "the reconciliation 
window shows a Starting Balance of several hundred dollars instead of 
$0." From your description, this sounds like expected behaviour. You 
have "reconciliation issues", so that says to me that you have already 
marked some of the transactions in this account as "reconciled". The 
"Starting Balance" value which you see in the Reconciliation Window 
should be exactly equal to the sum of those transactions as they affect 
this account.


So, maybe a question you have is, "How to I untangle incorrect 
reconciliations in an account"? For that question, it would be helpful 
to know what are the "reconciliation issues" you see, what transactions 
are in the account, and what reconciliation you have done so far.


Does this help? Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


[1] /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide/, Figure 2.11 "*New Account 
Hierarchy Setup: Account Setup"* 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/basics-together1.html#idm1843>


[2] /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide,/ Section 2.9.4. 
"*Reconciliation*" 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-reconcile1>


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Re: [GNC] Schedule transaction for 2 Wednesday?

2023-03-10 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-03-09 21:11, ToddAndMargo via gnucash-user wrote:




On 3/9/23 10:38 PM, ToddAndMargo via gnucash-user wrote:

Hi All,

Fedora 37
gnucash-4.13-1.fc37.x86_64

How do I set up a scheduled transaction to go off
the second Wednesday of the month?

...[elided]...
... Just posted:

RFE: allow for scheduled transitions 2nd weekdays
https://bugs.gnucash.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=GnuCash

A better URL for that RFE bug report is 
<https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798780>.


On 2023-03-10 00:29, ToddAndMargo via gnucash-user wrote:

On 3/9/23 21:26, Stan Brown (using GC 2.6.19) wrote:


On 2023-03-09 21:11, ToddAndMargo via gnucash-user wrote:
  Just posted:

RFE: allow for scheduled transitions 2nd weekdays
https://bugs.gnucash.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=GnuCash

You might want to remove that


Ooops.  Did not scroll down far enough 


...and Bug 798780 now has Status: "RESOLVED INVALID".

Others may go looking for a way to schedule transactions on the n-th 
weekday, and find this bug report. So, I added a comment that a) GnuCash 
already has this feature, and b) here is how to use it.


The GnuCash Help, Sections 6.14. "Edit Scheduled Transaction Window" and 
6.13. "Scheduling Transactions", ought to describe the capability of 
scheduling transactions for the n-th week of a month, but they don't. If 
anyone wants to add a description of the feature to those sections, my 
text in Bug 798780 might be a helpful building block.


Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] Manually edit pmt info (reverse a payment) for a vendor?

2023-03-02 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


This sounds like a good solution for your situation.

I recommend the complementary idea: saving a copy of your active book as 
a test book, doing experiments in that test book to see how things 
actually work, then deleting the test book, and redoing the actual 
transactions in the active book. It is only a little time and effort to 
make a test book, and it can save you having to undo mistakes in the 
active book.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-03-02 10:07, Eric Chapman wrote:
I think I have a plan: I will just start the whole year over. I only 
had a few transactions entered, so I'll copy the chart of accounts to 
a new file and start anew. :)


On 3/2/23 12:36, Eric Chapman wrote:
I'm just getting started entering in 2022 data. I made some mistakes 
in using Accounts Payable and Credit Cards. The amounts in those 
accounts are accurate, but only because I deleted erroneously posted 
transactions. However, I have two vendors which show "prepayment" 
amounts when I do a vendor report.


Is there a way to manually change that data?

Since I only have one transaction entered for each of those vendors, 
and I'm just getting started, I would not be opposed to just deleting 
those vendors and their associated bills (invoices) and starting over 
(now that I better understand how AP and Credit Cards work. Is it 
possible to delete all transactions related to a vendor and then 
delete the vendor? How?


Or maybe I could somehow enter in a "debit memo" for the vendor 
(i.e., another bill) that would zero out the amount now listed as 
prepayment. But then how would I "pay" it such that the prepayment is 
applied to it?


Thank you for helping me correct my newbie errors!


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Re: [GNC] ATM withdrawl

2023-02-26 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-02-25 19:43, Fred Tydeman wrote:


When I try to record an ATM withdrawal, I do not see any way to  add a
split for the bank fee.

I am taking 150 euros from an ATM.  There is a 10.50 euro bank fee.  My
bank sees a withdrawal of 171.85 USD.  I have trading accounts turned on.

In my US bank account, I enter USD 171.85; I say that the money is going to
a euro account.  I get a popup where I enter 160.50 euros.  I see no way to
split out 150 cash and 10.50 bank fee.

This is in GnuCash 4.13 on Linux.


Ah, a person after my own heart: recording multi-currency transactions 
with a main payment and a split for a fee.


I suspect that what is going on here is that your transaction is not a 
simple ATM withdrawal, it is a multiple-currency ATM withdrawal.


For a single-currency ATM withdrawal, the GnuCash data entry is simpler. 
Imagine you are withdrawing 150.00 USD from an ATM, from your USD bank 
account. There is a 10.50 USD bank fee. Your USD bank sees a withdrawal 
of 160.50 USD.


In that case you would follow the instructions in the GnuCash Help 
documentation, 6.4. Multiple Split Transactions 
<https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=4&lang=C&doc=help>, to make the 
multiple splits of the transaction visible in the UI. There will be two 
splits, one withdrawing 150.00 USD from the USD bank account, and one 
adding 150.00 USD to your USD cash-in-pocket account. You simply add a 
third split, for 10.50 USD, for the fee, and increase the split 
withdrawing from the USD bank account to 160.50 USD.


But since this is a multi-currency transaction, you also has the 
Transfer Funds dialogue box, which also serves as the foreign exchange 
dialogue box. You will want to read up in the GnuCash Help 
documentation, 6.1. Transfer Funds Dialog Box 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-help/trans-win-enter.html>, 
especially 6.1.3 Currency Transfer, and also 6.5. Multiple 
Currency/Commodity Transactions 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-help/trans-currency-enter.html>. 
This documentation only tells you part of the story, and does not 
include screenshots of the dialogue box. Some day I may contribute an 
improvement to this section, because it keeps confusing me.


One thing to know is that each transaction has a base currency. This is 
set to the currency of the register from which you enter the 
transaction. If you enter the transaction from your USD bank account, 
the base currency of the transaction will be USD, and all splits with 
EUR amounts will put up the Transfer Funds dialogue box to get a USD:EUR 
conversion rate.


Another thing to know is that each split which has an account 
denominated in a currency different from the transaction's base currency 
has its own exchange rate. The Transfer Funds dialogue box deals only 
with that individual split and its exchange rate. Thus, a Transfer Funds 
dialogue dealing with the split for your EUR cash-in-pocket account is 
not the place to add a second split for Bank Service Charge in Euros.


For your USD and EUR mixed-currency transaction, you should first enter 
a third split for the Bank Service Charge. It is up to you whether you 
make an account for EUR Bank Service Charges, or record the charge 
against a USD Bank Service Charges account.


If you enter the transaction from your USD bank account register, the 
base currency of the transaction will be USD. When you add a split with 
a EUR Bank Service Charge account, you will want to enter a EUR amount 
of 10.50 EUR, and an exchange rate of (150+10.50)/171.85 EUR/USD. (You 
may need to enter the inverse of this fraction; the Transfer Funds 
dialogue box always confuses me, and I usually enter the rate in the 
wrong direction at least 50% of the time.) But when you add a split with 
a USD Bank Service Charge account, you will want to enter the USD 
equivalent of 10.50 EUR directly in the split, which will be 
171.85/(150+10.50) USD (I am pretty confident about that fraction).


Note that you can enter simple expressions like this in a split's amount 
field, and GnuCash will do the arithmetic for you. See the GnuCash 
Tutorial and Concepts Guide, 2.9.2.4. Using Entry Shortcuts 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-shortcuts1>, 
and the bullet point beginning, "In any of the amount fields, you can 
use a built-in calculator."


Does this answer your question?

Best regards,
 —Jim DeLaHunt


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Re: [GNC] Account Types -- what are the implications of getting them wrong?

2023-02-20 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-02-19 05:32, m...@tgr66.me wrote:


The approach I’m taking in a migration app I’m writing will be conservative, 
erring on the side of more general vice more specific. For example, ASSET, 
LIABILITY, INCOME, EXPENSE, EQUITY are pretty easy to accurately apply based on 
account names (for example, “assets:current assets:cash”). In an initial round 
of type assignments, this account would get ASSET as its type. In a deeper 
subsequent look, it should be reassigned with a type of CASH.

INCOME, EXPENSE and EQUITY types don’t have sub-types I see, so those will be 
even easier. I don’t foresee any issues with those.

LIABILITY and CREDIT don’t appear too difficult as there just aren’t that many 
options. First I’ll assign LIABILITY and if the words “credit card” or “credit 
cards” exist in the rest of the account path, I’ll switch to CREDIT, otherwise, 
leave it alone.

Assets and Investments will be the trickiest. Let me start with Assets first.

Assume an imported account has the path and name of “assets:savings:family 
savings”. Getting this typed as an ASSET is pretty straightforward. Ideally, 
however, it would be typed as BANK.

Or SHOULD it? Perhaps this family puts its savings in old coffee cans under the 
back porch. So, I’d be inclined to leave this as ASSET. The user can change it, 
but are there any negative implications of assigning too general of an account 
type to an account?

However, if the name has the word “account” in it, well, then I’d be confident 
assigning a type of BANK.

Investment accounts will be the trickiest I believe. Heck, I’m not sure I 
understand the differences.

When I create a new account in GnuCash, I’m surprised at some of the 
assignments made when creating the hierarchy. For example, 
“Assets:Investments:Brokerage Account” is a placeholder with type of BANK. I 
would be inclined to assign any placeholder accounts a more generic type. In 
this case, ASSET. Again, are there any negative implications of me taking this 
approach?

Regardless, I will direct the user to review all of them once created in 
GnuCash to ensure they align with their exceptions, but are there consequences 
if I get them wrong?

And finally, TRADING. I don’t see any of those in the initial account list 
created when I make a new file. So, for now, I’ll ignore this. Is that okay?


It sounds like you are trying to answer two questions:

1. How do you extract meaning from account name strings in incoming 
migration data, such that you can pick the appropriate GnuCash account type?


2. What are the GnuCash account types, and what are their meanings (or, 
purposes, or semantics)?


I think question 1 is up to you. It is not a GnuCash question.

The place to start for question 2 is the GnuCash /Help/ documentation, 
5.1. *Types of GnuCash Accounts*[1]. You might find it helpful to 
consult the notes about what kinds of child account type each parent 
account type accepts.  Missing from this page is the Trading Account type.


Trading accounts are described in the GnuCash /Tutorial and Concepts 
Guide/, 12.3. *Automatically Recording Currency Transactions using 
Trading Accounts*[2], and at wiki page *Trading Accounts*[3].


You might have to resort to reading the GnuCash code[4] to answer more 
detailed questions. I remember doing this once to clear up some of my 
own questions.


Your subject: line asks, "what are the implications of getting [Account 
Types] wrong?" I don't see you asking that in your message body. But as 
far as I know, the implication can be unusability if you get the account 
type very wrong (e.g. an Asset type for what should be an Expense type 
account), or inconvenience if you get the account type a little wrong 
(e.g. no option to add an interest payment during the reconciliation 
process if you assign a Liability type for what should be a Credit type 
account). Note that users can, within limits, change account types for a 
book which is in use. That limits the negative implications of migration 
software making the wrong choice of account type.


You are welcome to pose more specific questions to this list, if you like.

And, while reading the documentation you may come up with suggestions 
for improved documentation wording. I encourage you to propose those as 
pull requests, or to the gnucash-dev mailing list. Part of what makes 
GnuCash so good is that many hands help to improve it.


Best regards,
     —Jim DeLaHunt

[1] <https://www.gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=4&lang=C&doc=help>, 
temporarily hosted at 
<https://code.gnucash.org/website/viewdoc.phtml?rev=4&lang=C&doc=help> 
while www.gnucash.org's web server is offline.


[2] 
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html>, 
temporarily 
<https://code.gnucash.org/website/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_trading_accts.html>


[3] <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Trading_Accounts>

[4] <https://github.com/GnuC

Re: [GNC] Reconciliation error - how should I correct?

2023-01-29 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-01-29 17:34, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:


I've reconciled my bank account until the end of July 2022, but then found
a bill from a vendor which was paid from the bank account in August, but
the transaction occurred in June. So really I want to create a bill in
June.


In what sense is this a "reconciliation error"? Reconciliation is the 
process of comparing your records with the bank's records, and dealing 
with any differences. One class of difference is when your records show 
a transaction, but the bank's records do not show that transaction. That 
transaction is left unreconciled. Another class of difference is when 
both your records and the bank's records show a transaction, but the 
details (e.g. the amount) differ. That transaction gets corrected in 
your records, or flagged as a bank error, or something.


In this case it looks like your records omitted a transaction from June, 
and you just now see it in the bank's records from August. Have you 
reconciled your records with the bank's records from August yet? If so, 
you should have noticed the transaction in the bank's records. If you 
have not yet reconciled with the bank's records from August, then now is 
the time to correct the discrepancy.



…What's the best way out of this?
First, validate that the bill is valid, that the vendor did issue it, 
and that it was correct to pay it. If any of those are not true, start a 
dispute about the error. If they are true, then create a bill in your 
records dated in June, and record that it was paid from your bank 
account in August. You got two month's worth of float. Congratulations.


Dr David Kirkby Ph.D
Email: drkir...@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk Web:
https://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/
Kirkby Microwave Ltd (Tel 01621-680100 / +44 1621-680100)
Stokes Hall Lodge, Burnham Rd, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 6DT.

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Re: [GNC] questions from a new user

2023-01-09 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Hello, Neil, and welcome to GnuCash.

On 2023-01-08 16:14, Neil Morrish wrote:

Hi
I am not sure if gnucash is right for me, as it seems quite hard to get
started. Can you advise me what steps to learn about for my simple
requirement please?
I want to keep a record of business transactions so I can send invoices and
make an annual report for my tax calculation.
I do work for 4 or 5 customers and like to give an invoice that shows the
things I've done , the cost of the work, and the expenses I incur.
I dont want to link this to my bank account.
When it is set up, is it easy to input the entries quickly?


Your situation sounds familiar. It reminds me of my requirements for 
invoicing, when starting out my small consulting business.


What I get from your requirements are:

 * main task is to generate invoices
 * small volume of invoices
 * easy

That, plus "track my time spent by project", was my requirements list 
when I looked for an invoicing tool.  GnuCash can generate invoices, but 
it doesn't track time spent, and it is not "easy". GnuCash is really 
good for bookkeeping, keeping track of those bank accounts and credit 
cards. It does some business-related tasks like generating invoices. And 
it has a steep learning curve. And the customer support is this list — 
we are friendly, well-intentioned, but only volunteer, so not always 
fast or effective.


So I ended up paying hundreds of dollars CAD per year to Freshbooks 
<https://freshbooks.com/>, a web-hosted tool which puts a lot of effort 
into making invoice generation easy, making time-tracking easy, and 
having very good customer support.


So, GnuCash is good for a lot of situations. It can certainly meet all 
your requirements except "easy". But it may not be best for your 
requirements.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

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Re: [GNC] NEw user assistance

2023-01-07 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Karl:

I understand your situation. I also keep my books primarily in Canadian 
dollars, but track investments in US dollars.


On 2023-01-07 09:56, Karl wrote:

…If I purchase foreign stocks
(foreign to Canada), my broker automatically converts my CAD "broker cash
account" to USD to purchase the stock. There is no need for me to have two
broker cash accounts (one for CAD and one for USD) - all my investment cash
is kept in one account, in CAD.…


So you are saying that your broker does not show you as having a USD 
cash account, but also that your broker purchases these US stocks in US 
dollars, which are converted from your Canadian dollars. The broker 
holds USD on your behalf, even if it is only transitory.


So, I suggest that you reflect that in your account hierarchy. Have an 
asset account in CAD which corresponds to your CAD cash and all 
CAD-denominated securities, and another asset account in USD which 
corresponds to your transitory USD cash and all USD-denominated securities:


-CAD Investments (parent account)
   -Online Broker Cash Account (CAD)
    -"individual CAD stocks" (in CAD)
    -etc (in USD)

-USD Investments (parent account)
  -Online Broker Cash Account (USD)    # note: transitory cash holdings
  -AAPL stock (in USD)
  -AMZN stock (in USD)
  -etc (in USD)

Does your broker report the USD prices of your US stock purchases, e.g. 
N shares at X USD per share?  Than N*X = Y USD total purchase price, and 
your broker deducted Z CAD to fund the purchase, so that they are 
implicitly exchanging Z CAD: Y USD. Each time you buy or sell shares, 
the Online Broker Cash Account (USD) will see a cash balance from the 
purchase or sale, together with an offsetting USD:CAD exchange 
transaction which brings that Cash Account (USD) balance back to zero.


Best regards,
  —Jim DeLaHunt, Vancouver, B.C.

On 2023-01-07 09:56, Karl wrote:

Thanks, John.

I am a self-directed investor, using an online broker. My structure would
be something like this:

Bank account ---> transfer funds to ---> online broker cash account (all in
CAD $) > all my investments


I then use my single online broker cash account to purchase my investments
(Canadian stocks, American stocks, etc.). If I purchase foreign stocks
(foreign to Canada), my broker automatically converts my CAD "broker cash
account" to USD to purchase the stock. There is no need for me to have two
broker cash accounts (one for CAD and one for USD) - all my investment cash
is kept in one account, in CAD.

Does that make sense? Hopefully I'm being clear.

So maybe I could set up my GnuCash Investment hierarchy something like:

-Online Broker Cash Account (all in CAD)

-USD Investments (parent account)

-AAPL stock

-AMZN stock

-etc

-CAD Investments (parent account)

-"individual CAD stocks"

-etc


Would that work?

Regards,

*Karl*


On Fri, 6 Jan 2023 at 23:22, john  wrote:


GnuCash prioritizes direct prices over indirect ones, so if you have a
single AAPL-CAD price in your price database and a bunch of AAPL-USD and
USD-CAD ones the latter will be ignored when trying to price AAPL in CAD
and you'll almost always get the single direct price.

Two more important considerations: Every transaction in GnuCash has a
single transaction currency and all prices created by that transaction are
to/from the transaction currency. The transaction currency is determined by
the account whose register has focus when you create it or by the From
account when using the Transfer Dialog.

If you're going to do multi-currency trading you want to enable Trading
Accounts on the book. You do that on the first tab of File>Properties. One
of the side effects of doing that is that the register shows amounts in the
split account's currency instead of the Register account's currency. The
following example will be written that way.

To avoid creating that AAPL-CAD price you need to create a possibly fake
USD cash account. If you purchase of US stocks involve an actual USD cash
account then use that. Once the accounts are in place, do the following.
For an e.g. to have numbers I'll assume a purchase of 100 shares of AAPL at
today's closing price of 129.62 and 1 USD = 1.34429 CAD. 100 shares of
AAPL, assuming a no-fee/no-commission brokerage and that the ask is the
close, will cost USD 12,962.00, which is CAD 17,433.24. If you do this part
from the CAD account you must use two transactions like so:

2023-01-06 Fund USD Cash for Purchase of 100 AAPL
Assets:Investment:Cash-CAD CAD 17,433.24
Assets:Investment:Cash-USD USD 12,962.00

Now buy the stock in another transaction. Do this in either the AAPL or
USD register to ensure that the transaction currency is USD!
2023-01-06 Buy AAPL 100
Assets:Investment:Stocks:Stocks-USD:AAPL 100 129.62 12,1962.00
Assets:Investment:Cash-USD 12,962.00

If you start from the AAPL or Cash-USD account you can do it in a single
transaction because the transac

Re: [GNC] Request for Automatic Reconciliation Function

2023-01-06 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bite Gao:

Thank you for continuing this conversation. I am glad to have your ideas 
in this discussion.


While I think I understand what feature you are asking for, I do see 
some difficulties with it. For example, you say:


On 2023-01-06 17:22, Bite Gao wrote:
…For each split record in the GnuCash file, the program scan for its 
counterpart in the bank statement.… Personally, I do not found that 
how computer program could make mistake in this process.…


The obvious difficulty is that for a single transaction, the text in the 
GnuCash file is probably different than the text in its counterpart in 
the bank statement. For example, suppose I have a weekly purchase where 
I enter the description as "SPUD, Vancouver BC" and the date as January 
5, but the bank statement may say "Small Potatoes Delivery * Paypal" and 
the date as January 6.  It is difficult — not impossible, but difficult 
— for GnuCash to see that these two transactions are counterparts. Their 
description text and their dates differ.


It turns out that GnuCash's Import Matcher can successfully recognise 
the link between these two.  But it often makes mistakes in this process.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2023-01-06 17:22, Bite Gao wrote:

GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
  Hello! While you pinpoint out the possibility of a mistake in 
automated process, it did not eliminate the meaning of the automatic 
reconciliation.
  What an automatic reconciliation does is: the program concatenates 
the transaction's date, check number and the transaction amount from 
both the bank statement and the GnuCash file. For each split record in 
the GnuCash file, the program scan for its counterpart in the bank 
statement. And when the counterpart is found, the program marks the 
split as reconciled.
  Personally, I do not found that how computer program could make 
mistake in this process. If you believe that the computer could have 
that happen, I would like to learn the detail about it.


  Yours,

   Bite Gao
Jan 7th, 2021

On 2023/1/6 20:57, Adrien Monteleone wrote:

I understand your explanation, but if you aren't checking and 
verifying every transaction, how do you ever discover when the 
automated process makes a mistake?


Reconciliation was invented long before computers, but I appreciate 
that the process demands one to slow down, take your time, and 
methodically verify the information.


Think of it as proof-reading - the hard way. (I learned in school to 
read stuff backwards when proofing!)


That is a pretty good analogy too:

If you've ever used auto-correct with auto-checking for spelling and 
grammar, or auto-suggestion or auto-completion for entire words and 
have seen the embarrassment and/or nightmare that can produce when 
the computer 'gets it wrong', would you want something like that for 
your financial records?


Regards,
Adrien

On 1/5/23 7:50 PM, Bite Gao wrote:

GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
   Hello! While you have mentioned the requirement of human 
intervene in the reconciliation process, I do not see it contradicts 
with the presence of automatically reconciliation system.
   In a reconcile process, the accountant check the record in the 
account book with the record in the bank statement (or statement 
from other institution). He (or she) may found out that two record 
are identical, or he (or she) may found that some record are not 
identical. Only the latter requires human notice, since there its no 
point wasting time on reconciled accounting transactions. An 
automatic reconciliation system can load the digital statement from 
the institution, compares the statement with the transaction in the 
accounting book, and pinpoints the discrepancies out. Then human 
accountant could step in and perform manual operations, such as 
checking other vouchers, contact with banks, etc. In the situation 
of single user, the automatic reconcile system have no reason to 
block manu

al reconciliation.
   Besides, when I means "human err", I means that the accountant 
overlook an discrepancy and regards it as identical. People do not 
spend too much time on identical records, since major of the 
transaction would be in that state. However, it could cause severe 
consequences if there do have a discrepancy.


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Re: [GNC] Request for Automatic Reconciliation Function

2023-01-06 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


Bite Gao:

Thank you for your feature request. And thank you for your second 
message, where you make your request clear enough that I finally 
understand it.


What I think you are requesting is that GnuCash's Reconciliation command 
add an option for GnuCash to read in a data file supplied by the bank. 
This data file has the same information as the bank's human-readable 
statement, but in a machine-readable form. GnuCash reads a starting and 
ending statement balance from the data file. Then GnuCash attempts to 
match each transaction in the data file with a transaction in the data 
file.  It does the equivalent of marking the matching transactions in 
the GnuCash register as tentatively reconciled, and ends by displaying a 
list of GnuCash and data file transactions which it could not match.  
This list might be empty. Then the human modifies the tentative 
reconciliations, or accepts them, and finishes the reconciliation. The 
final state of the Register after reconciliation with the aid of a data 
file is the same as after reconciliation by the human using the 
human-readable statement.


To me, the matching which this requires is not very different from what 
the Import Matcher does. So, if the data file is a format which GnuCash 
can read, say an OFX file or a CSV file with the right configuration, 
then it seems feasible to use a data file to help reconciliation. And, 
this request does not seem to require reading the human-readable content 
of a PDF file.


Bite Gao: do you have banks which provide statements as machine-readable 
data files?  If so, what format does the bank provide?   Do the start 
and end dates of the data file match the start and end dates of the 
human-readable statement? Does the bank certify that the data file has 
the same transaction and balance content as the human-readable 
statement, and is just as trustworthy?


Among my statements from banks, credit cards, and investment companies, 
all provide human-readable statements in PDF format. Most provide 
transaction data in CSV format, and only some provide data in OFX or QFX 
or QIF format.  Most provide data files with the same start and end 
dates as the human-readable statement, but some offer only my choice of 
arbitrary start and end date. I could choose dates  for a transaction 
data file which match a statement's dates. But none of my statement 
providers certify that the data files have the same content as the 
human-readable statement. If there were a difference, I am pretty sure 
they would tell me that the data file is wrong and the human-readable 
file is correct. And reconciling to an incorrect data file is not helpful.


Thus, I can imagine that — for me, with my present statements — reading 
in a transaction data file to help with reconciliation would turn a 
10-minute task into a 5-minute task in most cases, but not in all cases.


Bite Gao, do I understand you correctly?  What machine-readable data 
files do your banks provide? Maybe your banks offer options which mine 
do not offer.


Best regards,
    —Jim DeLaHunt

On 2023-01-05 17:50, Bite Gao wrote:

GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
  Hello! While you have mentioned the requirement of human intervene 
in the reconciliation process, I do not see it contradicts with the 
presence of automatically reconciliation system.
  In a reconcile process, the accountant check the record in the 
account book with the record in the bank statement (or statement from 
other institution). He (or she) may found out that two record are 
identical, or he (or she) may found that some record are not 
identical. Only the latter requires human notice, since there its no 
point wasting time on reconciled accounting transactions. An automatic 
reconciliation system can load the digital statement from the 
institution, compares the statement with the transaction in the 
accounting book, and pinpoints the discrepancies out. Then human 
accountant could step in and perform manual operations, such as 
checking other vouchers, contact with banks, etc. In the situation of 
single user, the automatic reconcile system have no reason to block 
manual reconciliation.
  Besides, when I means "human err", I means that the accountant 
overlook an discrepancy and regards it as identical. People do not 
spend too much time on identical records, since major of the 
transaction would be in that state. However, it could cause severe 
consequences if there do have a discrepancy.

  Yours,

 Bite, Gao
Jan 6th, 2023

On 2023/1/5 12:03, Liz Dodd Wrote:

On Wed, 4 Jan 2023 15:42:41 +0800
Bite Gao  wrote:


    GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
   Hello! While your software has done many tedious jobs previously
    done by
    accountants manually, it cannot automatically reconcile its
accounting data
    to the bank statement in its digital form. In my opinion, the
    automation of
    reconciliation is not only efficient but also accurate since it
reduces huma

Re: [GNC] New User: initial help getting up and running

2022-12-18 Thread Jim DeLaHunt


On 2022-12-18 12:20, Eric Chapman wrote:


Hi, everyone,

I just downloaded Gnucash-Intel-4.12-1.dmg for Mac. I plan to install 
in on Ventura (MacOS 13.1) on a late 2018 Mac Mini (Intel). I'm trying 
to migrate from another software on a Windows virtual machine on the Mac.


Hello, Eric, and welcome to GnuCash! I will try to answer your 
questions, with answers interleaved below.




I have some questions:

(1) Is it likely that Gnucash will be made available for M1 and M2 
Macs in the future? From what I can tell, it is for Intel Macs only, 
so if there is no future for the later ones, maybe I should not go 
this route.


GnuCash certainly is available for M1 and M2 macs, and always has been. 
I have a MacBook Pro with an M1 Max processor, and GnuCash runs fine.


Tell me, what gives you the impression that GnuCash "is for Intel Macs 
only"? Maybe we can reword whatever is giving you that false impression, 
to make it clearer.


If it is the fact that the installer is named 
"Gnucash-Intel-4.12-1.dmg", that name does not indicate that Gnucash 
works _only_ on Macs with intel processors. The word "intel" has 
technical and historical meanings. It was compiled using the machine 
code of intel processors, but the magic of macOS allows M1 and M2 Macs 
to run the machine code of intel processors, in addition to the machine 
code of M1 and M2 processors.


(2) I read much of the README.TXT file. With the .dmg file I 
downloaded install everything I need or do the instructions under 
"Dependencies" and "Building and Installing" mean that I have to start 
with getting all that stuff on the Mac first?


The README.TXT comes from a history of software distributed as source 
code, which recipients must build first before being able to run.  But 
when you download "GnuCash for Mac", you are getting "precompiled 
binaries". That is, you get a Mac app which is all ready to go.  The 
README.TXT file does not really tell you how to install this.


GnuCash as distributed for Mac is a Mac app. Install it like you install 
other Mac apps: open the .dmg file, see a window containing an icon 
named something ".app", and drag that icon to your Applications folder. 
Then double-click on that Gnucash.app icon within your Applications folder.





(3) Is there a "New User Guide" somewhere on the web that can be 
accessed? Tutorials?


Totally!  Take a look at the "Documentation" section of the GnuCash 
website: .


I suggest you start by reading through the "Tutorial and Concepts Guide" 
.


Then consider how familiar you feel with the basics of double-entry 
bookkeeping. GnuCash relies on double-entry, whereas other bookkeeping 
packages try to hide it. If you feel underprepared, read up on basic 
accounting a bit. Wikipedia's 
 
is a good place to start. Maybe get an tutorial book on accounting.


Do you work with an accountant?  Maybe ask them to recommend a book. You 
will want to ask them later to recommend how to structure your 
accounting work. We in the GnuCash community can help you figure out how 
to use GnuCash to achieve your accounting goals, but only your 
accountant can advise you on what are the right accounting goals for 
your jurisdiction and your situation.


Then run GnuCash, make a test book purely for experimentation, and start 
entering some of your typical transactions.  Try things. Fail. Learn. 
Then start over again with a new book for your real bookkeeping.


At some point, you will want to look up details of how to operate 
GnuCash in the "Help Manual" 
.


When you want community help, consult the links in the left pane of the 
GnuCash.org main page, to find an FAQ, a Wiki, and information about our 
mailing lists (including the one you are currently using).


I hope this helps you get started. Have fun!
  —Jim "GnuCash 4.10 on Apple Silicon M1 Max and macOS Monterey 
12.6.2" DeLaHunt




Thank you!

Eric Chapman

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