BUDGET: A total RE-ENGINEERING
First of all, Budgeting tool is like a joke in GNU Cash (till version 2.6.8) because:
- It does not support multiple currencies when it has to add up from sub accounts to main accounts. It affects ALL, and I mean ALL, the budget reports, because it never fits the budget with the real transactions.
For example: I have a "Son Expenses" sub account (in Euros) into my "Family Expenses" (in Dollars). When I register EUR 100 in "Son Expenses" it add USD 100 in "Family Expenses" instead of, let's say USD 112.13 (http://themoneyconverter.com/ES/EUR/USD.aspx on 10-05-2015). So it will not work with the reports.
The arithmetic is totally INCONSISENT in "BUDGET REPORT", because in ASSETS, LIABILITIES and EXPENSES, it subtracts Actual from Budget; but in INCOMES it does the opposite (subtracts Budget fron Actual)
It is really difficult to build a Budget in GNU Cash:
3.1. It does not allow an-account-recurrent-registers in several months
3.2. It does not allow copy-paste data quickly. You have to double or even triple click on a cell to make it active.
3.3 You should check jGnash2 budget tool (http://sourceforge.net/projects/jgnash/). It works fine. It is a shame that I love GNUCash.
Please, fix Budget function. Thanks
Max ZR
shared this idea
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Max
commented
Thanks for your opinion. It is valuable.
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YeOldHinnerk
commented
Hi,
@1: Well, as you already noted, there's a Long way to go before FX appears on the horizon for Budgets. Let's try to get what can be achieved with limited effort.@2: Well, let's first just look at Income and Expenses. Here it both seems to make sense, e.g.: (IncActual - IncBudget) + (ExpBudget - ExpActual) = 'Net Experience Variance'. So I would call it an inconsistency between Assets and Liabilites - which I never Budget for.
@3: Yes, this is a highly frustating experience. Check out this Feature request:
https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request/suggestions/1561553-copy-budget-value-into-all-budget-periodsYou should consider Splitting this request into several, so that someone looking for a Feature request to implement does not get overwhelmed but rather finds sufficiently small and well specified pieces to implement.
Also please consider already existing requests. We will never draw enough Attention, if the same or very similar requests coexist and votes get split among them. So for initialization of Budget, please consider giving some votes to https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request/suggestions/1561553-copy-budget-value-into-all-budget-periods
One last comment: My growing Impression is that none of the developers are actually using the Budget Feature. Therefore even some smaller Features never got implemented, like the initialization. So I more or less gave up on budgeting in GnuCash for now... which is a pity.