Feature Request
Welcome to the GnuCash “New Feature Request” forum.
Please review/search the existing requests before posting a new request.
- or
7 results found
-
Implement quotations which can be converted to invoices
A quotation to a customer is only a step away from an invoice, except that it is printed but not posted.
Fortunately my ignorance of programming and databases allows me to suggest that this is simple as there the invoicing code can be recycled.
When the customer okays the quotation (perhaps with alterations), the quotation can be called up and converted to an invoice and posted.
See also credit notes http://goo.gl/FR76A.
114 votes -
Move Estimate settings (date and significant digits) to Budget Options and remember
Button Estimate open Window "Estimate Budget Values" and these settings (date and significant digits) move to Budget Options and remember values from first set up.
3 votes -
cashflow forecast with graph
Gnucash needs a robust cashflow forecast with graph, where one can select which accounts and show future cashflow for 30, 90, 180 and 360 days based on scheduled transactions (both credits and debits) that have not yet been entered. e.g. my pay comes every 2 weeks, I get some extra income in June and August that I can estimate, and I have some bills that are every month, others twice a year... I need to know when things will "pile up" requiring a transfer from higher yielding savings accounts into checking. Microsoft Money had a great forecast with a graph so one could identify to the day when balances would run low and plan ahead for transferring money from other accounts. The wiki wishlist for GnuCash has a very detailed explanation of how cash flow forecasting could work, also suggesting the ability to create estimated cashflow from past transactions (which Money could do), but for my part a starting place would be known scheduled transactions that haven't yet been entered. Being able to modify single occurrences of scheduled transactions would also be great without having to edit the entire series (e.g. most months my utility bills are X but I know the electricity bill is higher in the 3 months of summer so).
Gnucash needs a robust cashflow forecast with graph, where one can select which accounts and show future cashflow for 30, 90, 180 and 360 days based on scheduled transactions (both credits and debits) that have not yet been entered. e.g. my pay comes every 2 weeks, I get some extra income in June and August that I can estimate, and I have some bills that are every month, others twice a year... I need to know when things will "pile up" requiring a transfer from higher yielding savings accounts into checking. Microsoft Money had a great forecast with a…
266 votes -
Bonds are quoted as %. Please add the possibility to divide the retrived quote by 100 on some bonds.
Many European Bonds have quotation base on 100 units (%). Yahooeurope for example offers price referred to single unit for stocks and price referred to 100 units for bonds. It would be nice if the price editor would have the possibility to divide the price retrived by Finance::Quote by 100 (or some other value). Finance Quote cannot do it because it operates on a source base (es Yahooeurope) and does not know if it is a bond or a stock.
Thank you for all your great work.6 votes -
Improved Mortgage Handling
Scheduled transactions cannot cope with overpaying on the principal, where the current balance (instead of estimated) is required for computation.
71 votes -
Enhance Online Bank Transactions Workflow
I use Gnucash für almost five years now for my private finances as well as for my company's. It's the best open source accounting software available. Thanks a lot for that!
Observing my personal workflow I realise that I spent most of the time in the online transactions tool inputting the accounts to be booked in. Although the Bayes algorithm is kind of a help here, it could easily be saved a lot of time with a few alterations.
Some ideas on that:
I. New online transactions import dialog.
It contains just one transaction at a time (instead of all the bank transactions it has right now) and adds a bottom line for orientation (e.g. # 34 of 110). The dialog shows basic transaction data (date, amount, description) and allows the user to specify the account counterparts for the booking (including split transactions). The former checkboxes ("new", "reconcile", "update+reconcile") would be buttons, that finish the current transaction and take you to the next one with the same click. Maybe it would come on handy to have a back button as well to get to the last transaction. The current import dialog could used as a summary afterwards. The bayes algorith can still be used as a proposal for each booking.II. Booking shortcuts in the online transactions import dialog
A very powerful tool would be to introduce shortcuts for the accounting while in the import dialog. The user could specify a booking statement (e.g. "book the whole amount on 'groceries'" or "book the amount 50% to account A and 50% to account B"). These rules would be associated with a letter key so that the user just presses "A" and the whole transaction is booked with the assigned rule and the dialog changes directly to the next transaction. After a while we would be fast as hell!III. Manual Rules for the Bayes Algorithm
It would be great, if the user could define custom rules like "amount equals xy" or "description cointains xy" or "bank account is xy" that are automatically evaluated in the import dialog overriding the proposal of the bayes algorithm. This would be especially helpful with the whole SEPA stuff in the EC, which will contain special IDs in the descriptions in the future.Thanks for considering these ideas. It will probably be a bit of development to be done but it could save everybody a great deal of time! I would estimate on my personal usage behavior that it would reduce the time for imports to 20% or even less.
I use Gnucash für almost five years now for my private finances as well as for my company's. It's the best open source accounting software available. Thanks a lot for that!
Observing my personal workflow I realise that I spent most of the time in the online transactions tool inputting the accounts to be booked in. Although the Bayes algorithm is kind of a help here, it could easily be saved a lot of time with a few alterations.
Some ideas on that:
I. New online transactions import dialog.
It contains just one transaction at a time (instead of all…9 votes -
Better budgeting (based on managerial accounting)
Budgeting in GnuCash is as big, yet as essential, a project as GnuCash in the first place. Please see my rant below.
We must not confuse planning for the future and recording transactions.
GnuCash’s greatest strength is that it is built on sound accounting principles. While financial accounting is all about recording transactions that occurred in the past. Managerial accounting is all about forecasting the future. What our best estimates of future Income; Expenses; Assets; Liabilities and Equity. These forecast are then used to answer questions. One of the most critical questions being “Will I have the cash to pay the cash outflows as they are expected to occur?”
As a side note, proper use of both is brilliantly described in: “Gnucash 2.4 Small Business Accounting: Beginner's Guide”. The author suggests using GnuCash to assist in the initial ruth forecast. He then exports to Excel for adjusting the numbers and generating reports.
I recommend this book to either anyone new to GnuCash and especially to those with no “business” accounting education. You can get Ashok Ramachandan’s book here: https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/gnucash-24-small-business-accounting-beginners-guide (To the best of my knowledge, I am in no way, directly or indirectly, affiliated to the author of this book.)
My personal rant with using GnuCash for budgeting = forecasting = managerial accounting is that I just can’t. Why? I plan 12 months ahead (trailing 12 months).
• The software gets very slow.
• The display of column is impractical and whenever changed reverts to its previous annoying state.I suggest getting a managerial accounting on board to assist with the task.
GnuCash is an outstanding piece of software to record past transactions (financial accounting). Yet, it’s potential as a rock solid tool to assist in planning for the future (budgeting = managerial accounting) remains mainly untapped.
Just like in the Ghost Buster movie, in accounting bad things happen if you the mix the streams (past & future).
PS: Whether you want peace in your personal life finances or have ambitions to grow or start a business you can find accounting courses online on Coursera; EdX and the like.
Budgeting in GnuCash is as big, yet as essential, a project as GnuCash in the first place. Please see my rant below.
We must not confuse planning for the future and recording transactions.
GnuCash’s greatest strength is that it is built on sound accounting principles. While financial accounting is all about recording transactions that occurred in the past. Managerial accounting is all about forecasting the future. What our best estimates of future Income; Expenses; Assets; Liabilities and Equity. These forecast are then used to answer questions. One of the most critical questions being “Will I have the cash to…
3 votes
457 results found
-
Transaction Classifications
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=113772
While the account hierarchy allows each transaction to be assigned to a different sub-accounts, it would be useful to have classifications which apply to transactions accross sub-accounts. e.g. assume the following accounts exists
Expenses::Electricity
Expenses::Water
Expenses::RatesClassifications could be achieved by adding new level to each account
Expenses::Electricity::Property1
Expenses::Electricity::Property2
Expenses::Water::Property1
Expenses::Water::Property2
Expenses::Rates::Property1
Expenses::Rates::Property2This can produce complex accounts structures especially if multiple currencies are involved.
580 votes -
Add Undo Functionality
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509267
Where's ctrl-z when you need it? There's several aspects to this. Naive undo would include being able to remove some typing or a paste operation you did to a field that you didn't intend. Sophisticated undo would let you reverse a transaction that you messed up without having to hunt for what account it's in now. Even more sophisticated might be multiple levels of both Undo and Redo, and a hint in the menu next to each about what would happen if you chose that option.
This is another simple time-saver that's probably been mentioned elsewhere but may be worth listing here for tracking purposes.
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509267
Where's ctrl-z when you need it? There's several aspects to this. Naive undo would include being able to remove some typing or a paste operation you did to a field that you didn't intend. Sophisticated undo would let you reverse a transaction that you messed up without having to hunt for what account it's in now. Even more sophisticated might be multiple levels of both Undo and Redo, and a hint in the menu next to each about what would happen if you chose that option.
This is another simple time-saver that's probably been mentioned elsewhere…
533 votes -
Make it easier for users to work with alternative/non-ISO/private currencies.
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657215
As I recall reading on the GnuCash mailing list(s), developers will not include support for currencies that do not meet ISO requirements. Therefore, to use the likes of Ithaca hours or bitcoins, users have to rather inappropriately treat them as stocks, virtually exchanging them for an official currency before conducting real transactions. Either that or users must rely on the XXX placeholder currency, which has its own limitations.
I propose that GnuCash include some functionality for users to define custom currencies that behave just like regular official ones. This functionality would allow for users to point GnuCash to where it can find exchange rates with other currencies or to manually specify them. It would also allow for users to peg the value of their custom currencies to officially recognized ones.
I hope the developers will consider my suggestion.
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657215
As I recall reading on the GnuCash mailing list(s), developers will not include support for currencies that do not meet ISO requirements. Therefore, to use the likes of Ithaca hours or bitcoins, users have to rather inappropriately treat them as stocks, virtually exchanging them for an official currency before conducting real transactions. Either that or users must rely on the XXX placeholder currency, which has its own limitations.
I propose that GnuCash include some functionality for users to define custom currencies that behave just like regular official ones. This functionality would allow for users to point…
357 votes -
Enable multi-user editing
Allow multiple users, in a business to access the database at the same time so that multiple transactions can be entered or updated simultaneously, and do so with remote access capabilites like Terminal Server (Windows) or X-Term sessions (Linux/Unix) .
This is a feature in many commercial programs and this is exactly why many business users of such programs are not using GnuCash.
If GnuCash wants to secure donations from the business community beyond the home or individual operating as a business, this feature will make GnuCash extremely attractive to a market that routinely pays $3,000 to $5,000 for products lke Quickbooks Pro with $850-$1,000 per year support contracts.Allow multiple users, in a business to access the database at the same time so that multiple transactions can be entered or updated simultaneously, and do so with remote access capabilites like Terminal Server (Windows) or X-Term sessions (Linux/Unix) .
This is a feature in many commercial programs and this is exactly why many business users of such programs are not using GnuCash.
If GnuCash wants to secure donations from the business community beyond the home or individual operating as a business, this feature will make GnuCash extremely attractive to a market that routinely pays $3,000 to $5,000 for products…310 votesConcurrent multi-user support has been part of our long-term goals for a while now:
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Roadmap#Database_and_QOFTime to update the status of this feature request…
Note it still says “long-term”, which currently means several years ahead of us. -
Better Budgeting
Corresponding bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700802
Budgeting system similar to YNAB, "You Need A Budget". It needs to carry forward over/under spent on budget category from month to month. I cannot use GNUCASH's budget system.
280 votes -
cashflow forecast with graph
Gnucash needs a robust cashflow forecast with graph, where one can select which accounts and show future cashflow for 30, 90, 180 and 360 days based on scheduled transactions (both credits and debits) that have not yet been entered. e.g. my pay comes every 2 weeks, I get some extra income in June and August that I can estimate, and I have some bills that are every month, others twice a year... I need to know when things will "pile up" requiring a transfer from higher yielding savings accounts into checking. Microsoft Money had a great forecast with a graph so one could identify to the day when balances would run low and plan ahead for transferring money from other accounts. The wiki wishlist for GnuCash has a very detailed explanation of how cash flow forecasting could work, also suggesting the ability to create estimated cashflow from past transactions (which Money could do), but for my part a starting place would be known scheduled transactions that haven't yet been entered. Being able to modify single occurrences of scheduled transactions would also be great without having to edit the entire series (e.g. most months my utility bills are X but I know the electricity bill is higher in the 3 months of summer so).
Gnucash needs a robust cashflow forecast with graph, where one can select which accounts and show future cashflow for 30, 90, 180 and 360 days based on scheduled transactions (both credits and debits) that have not yet been entered. e.g. my pay comes every 2 weeks, I get some extra income in June and August that I can estimate, and I have some bills that are every month, others twice a year... I need to know when things will "pile up" requiring a transfer from higher yielding savings accounts into checking. Microsoft Money had a great forecast with a…
266 votes -
Prevent accidental changes by locking a fiscal period
One problem with Gnucash is that a user may accidentally change a transaction in a previous month or year. For example, it is possible to delete a transaction that should not be deleted. Also, if a user enters the wrong date in a new transaction (e.g. when typing the date, the year is wrongly entered) the transaction will enter the register in a previous period, but the user may not know where it went. Thus the accounts could be in error due to an accidentally deleted transaction or incorrectly entered transaction.
In my experience training people to use Gnucash in the non-profit sector this has frequently happened.
SUGGESTED SOLUTION:
Add a feature where the entries in a month may be locked and password protected. Thus, after the data-entry clerk enters all the transactions for a month into Gnucash, the finance manager locks all the transactions with a password unknown to the data-entry clerk.The lock would not prevent reports from being generated or data from being viewed, it would only prevent data from being changed in the locked period.
If subsequently, transactions in a previous month need to changed, the finance manager's password will be needed to unlock that month.
Such a lock could prevent both accidental changes to the accounts in a previous period and intentional attempts to manipulate the accounts to the data entry clerk's personal advantage.
One problem with Gnucash is that a user may accidentally change a transaction in a previous month or year. For example, it is possible to delete a transaction that should not be deleted. Also, if a user enters the wrong date in a new transaction (e.g. when typing the date, the year is wrongly entered) the transaction will enter the register in a previous period, but the user may not know where it went. Thus the accounts could be in error due to an accidentally deleted transaction or incorrectly entered transaction.
In my experience training people to use Gnucash in…
229 votes -
More charting: Budget vs. Actual chart
Corresponding bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700801
Similar to http://www.mint.com concerning features and graphical appeal.
194 votes -
Allow the database to be secured by way of a password
Corresponding bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700803
The aim is not absolute security but would prevent casual access to the information held. (Windows ACLs go some way towards this but any administrator could view the information.)
If this would be better done by securing the files outside the application, could someone tell me how?179 votes -
Configuration Option for Backup Location
It would be nice to have the option to place Gnucash-generated backup files in
a designated folder. This configuration setting might best appear on the same
Preferences tab as the Delete Backup Files preference. The preference pane
could display:
- the active backup folder (defaulting to the data file location),
- a folder selection widget, and
- a Select button to implement the change155 votes -
CSV and Other Import
Currently the CSV (and other like QIF) import dialog is very strict and gives NO facility for MAPPING of accounts to CSV columns etc.
No info on whether to put last column in csv as expenses:OfficeExpenses or only OfficeExpenses? and then whether gnucash is configured to show
only last of account names or fully qualified names. I tried BOTH combinations, still gnucash Fails EVERYTIME to map accounts.
behaviour I saw was - it maps ALL the entries to one account ( like all csv rows to Office_Expenses !!!)Then - in last import dialog, we get mapped (or imbalance) accounts which are always distorted
and then I have to keep double clicking EACH row !!! to map it to particular a/c.
I can't even tell gnucash to repeat same for other rows !!!So first item would be to have
A. Proper and EASY dialogs in Import Wizards
B. It should also allow - while mapping - as debit or credit columns corresponding to accounts
C. Import should be able to read FIRST line of csv file as Column-Headers and use it in mapping
Currently the CSV (and other like QIF) import dialog is very strict and gives NO facility for MAPPING of accounts to CSV columns etc.
No info on whether to put last column in csv as expenses:OfficeExpenses or only OfficeExpenses? and then whether gnucash is configured to show
only last of account names or fully qualified names. I tried BOTH combinations, still gnucash Fails EVERYTIME to map accounts.
behaviour I saw was - it maps ALL the entries to one account ( like all csv rows to Office_Expenses !!!)Then - in last import dialog, we get mapped (or…
145 votesThank you all for the feedback.
The csv importer is currently being improved on the development branch. Several of the missing parts mentioned here are already being addressed, such as:
- ability to select transfer account
- ability to import files exported from gnucash
- remember account mappings for a future import -
Check for Updates Automatically
As most of the applications that are available today (including their updates/releases) are distributed online. So most of them have the ability to check for latest stable updates/releases.
Visiting the GnuCash website everytime or requiring to subscribe to the newsletter is not really always viable.
Thus it would be great if GnuCash gets the ability to be able to check for its Updates Automatically at Start Up or periodically (that can be customized by the user).
142 votes -
bitcoin
Corresponding Bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=690479
I suggest you support bitcoin (and namecoin) as a proper currency. I don't care if it has an ISO code or not, nor whether you can get quotes automatically.
135 votes -
Implement quotations which can be converted to invoices
A quotation to a customer is only a step away from an invoice, except that it is printed but not posted.
Fortunately my ignorance of programming and databases allows me to suggest that this is simple as there the invoicing code can be recycled.
When the customer okays the quotation (perhaps with alterations), the quotation can be called up and converted to an invoice and posted.
See also credit notes http://goo.gl/FR76A.
114 votes -
Manually change ordering of Transactions
Corresponding bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700804
It would be really helpful if GnuCash had the facility to move transactions before or after a particular transaction of the same day, i.e. to change the ordering manually by some buttons or similar. If time could be mentioned in seconds then we could do that to rearrange the transactions.
But easier would be to have Up and Down arrows to rearrange transactions by just selecting on the arrow and clicking on up or down.
If the moved transaction reaches the beginning or end of the set of the same day's transactions, the transaction date of that transaction could be incremented or decremented OR could stop right there OR could cycle from the bottom top or top bottom depending on which arrow button you were clicking on to move the transaction.I hope I was able to explain my point.
Thanks for your consideration
Corresponding bugzilla item: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700804
It would be really helpful if GnuCash had the facility to move transactions before or after a particular transaction of the same day, i.e. to change the ordering manually by some buttons or similar. If time could be mentioned in seconds then we could do that to rearrange the transactions.
But easier would be to have Up and Down arrows to rearrange transactions by just selecting on the arrow and clicking on up or down.
If the moved transaction reaches the beginning or end of the set of the same day's transactions, the transaction date of…103 votesUnfortunately the code implementing this feature eventually never made it into the official releases. So I’m reopening this feature request.
-
Categorize multiple transactions at once
It would be nice if I could select multiple transactions at one time to assign them to a single category.
Example 1: I frequently import lots of data (via QIF) at once and don't have time to categorize everything during the import process, so I want to be able to go through later and quickly categorize. It would be much faster if I could, for example, select all of my restaurant transactions at once and then categorize them all with a few clicks.
Example 2: For my business trips I create a single account for each trip. There is no way Bayesian matching will ever be able to successfully guess where these transactions should go because it's a new account each time.
It would be nice if I could select multiple transactions at one time to assign them to a single category.
Example 1: I frequently import lots of data (via QIF) at once and don't have time to categorize everything during the import process, so I want to be able to go through later and quickly categorize. It would be much faster if I could, for example, select all of my restaurant transactions at once and then categorize them all with a few clicks.
Example 2: For my business trips I create a single account for each trip. There is no…
98 votes -
User-defined fields/attributes
Please enable users to define their own fields/attributes for transactions, transaction splits, accounts, customers, employees, invoices, jobs, orders, prices...
With a custom fields I could solve (or at least workaround) the following issues described in separate threads:
- transaction classification
- add the ability to attached scanned images to invoices
- point of sale
- link any transaction to "the other party"And more:
- I could fill-in bank account number of the other party at bank account transactions - and can later search according the bank account
- make notes to the transactions (it's a good idea to make more extensive notes to complex transactions so as you could remember later what was going on)
- and morePlease enable users to define their own fields/attributes for transactions, transaction splits, accounts, customers, employees, invoices, jobs, orders, prices...
With a custom fields I could solve (or at least workaround) the following issues described in separate threads:
- transaction classification
- add the ability to attached scanned images to invoices
- point of sale
- link any transaction to "the other party"And more:
- I could fill-in bank account number of the other party at bank account transactions - and can later search according the bank account
- make notes to the transactions (it's a good idea to make…96 votes -
Add a report feature like Crystal Reports that allows fully custom reports to be user generated.
This would greatly increase the universe of prospective users by including all the many Non-Profit groups that do multiple projects supported by multiple donors
89 votes -
Provide more calendars
I'm using gnu cash since two months ago and find it very good and user friendly. My only big problem is I am Persian and you don't have our calendar in the program. The same problem could happened to the people the other nations and countries.
89 votes -
Autofill Feature should show a Drop Down List
When i am typing the description currently what happens is that the first matching record is auto-filled. But It would be more helpful if there was a drop down list (with vertical Scroll) with a list of similar records based on words present in them as typed.
For Example: I have the following descriptions previously entered
Amul Milk - Toned
Amul Milk - Double Toned
Amul Milk - Skimmed
Mother Dairy Milk - Full Cream
Sapan Milk - SkimmedWhat happens now is that when i type "Amul" the transaction gets filled with the first match even if have to enter the third one or else i will have to type the whole line
What would be really awesome is if I typed "Milk" and a small drop down list would pop up and i could select Mother dairy from it especially if some else is doing the data entry and does not know how the previous descriptions have been entered.
When i am typing the description currently what happens is that the first matching record is auto-filled. But It would be more helpful if there was a drop down list (with vertical Scroll) with a list of similar records based on words present in them as typed.
For Example: I have the following descriptions previously entered
Amul Milk - Toned
Amul Milk - Double Toned
Amul Milk - Skimmed
Mother Dairy Milk - Full Cream
Sapan Milk - SkimmedWhat happens now is that when i type "Amul" the transaction gets filled with the first match even if have to…
79 votes
- Don't see your idea?