Ben, For the record it is a pretty good report, and has helped me to see an amount as I plan my budget. One thing that could possibly work out is maybe a separate table for planned/budgeted amounts for Assets and Liabilities and the user could do the math them self to whatever effect worked best for them.
Assets ====== 401k $1000.000 Savings Goal 1 $300.00 =========================== Total $1300.00 Liabilities ======== Credit Card 1 ($100.00) Credit Card 2 ($500.00) =========================== Total ($600.00) I tried to figure out how to modify the report, but I developed a few gray hairs and slight frustration. So, I enter the amount from the checking account to the liability account, and then the accounting rules get blurry -> I then adjust the split adding the same amount to an expense account letting the rest go to Imbalance. The objective I guess a lot of people would have is getting all of their budgeting information on one page/report with the math completed. Thanks, Andre Powell apowell...@gmail.com On Jan 19, 2010, at 8:37 AM, Benjamin Johnsen wrote: > Andre, > > It is good to hear that you are using the report. After I submitted I hadn't > heard anything more and figured it was a dead end. > > I might have a few updates but they would be graphical and maybe a few > calculations bugs that show up around the end of the year. I will have to > see what version I submitted to know what issues I might have fixed. > > I have talked to a few people about the Asset and Liability issue in relation > to a budget. Again these people aren't CPAs but they run small businesses > and they have some pretty good insight into how the books are done. They > seemed to say that updating Assets and Liabilities was a Year End activity. > Their recommendation was to create an Expense account and at the Year End > when you close it out it would get moved to the Liability there by reducing > the Liability. > > I don't know if you do you a Year End close out but as I understand it at the > end of each year you should close out all of your Expense and Income > accounts. Basically get them back to 0. The way I understand to do this is > by creating an Asset account named for the year. Something like "2008 Year > End". I then transfer all of my Expense and all of my Income to that Asset > account. > > So if I take a mortgage as an example. I am going to do a simple example and > ignore closing costs and taxes and any other things that could go along with > a mortgage. This just deals with the mortgage payments. I have 4 accounts. > 1 Liability (Mortgage Principle), 1 Asset (Value of the House), 2 Expense (1 > Interest Payment, 1 Principle Payment). > > I then have a transaction from the Liability to the Asset account for $80,000 > this give that Asset its value if a down payment was made then another > transfer would be made from another Asset account to the House Asset account. > Then as the year goes on payments on the mortgage are made every month. > Charge those payment to the Interest and Principle Expense accounts > accordingly. At the end of the end of the year there is $10,000 in the > Interest Expense account and $5,000 in the Principle Expense account. The > Year End close out process for the Interest Expense account a transaction > would be created that would transfer $10,000 from the Interest Expense > account to the newly created "2008 Year End" Asset account. To close out the > Principle Expense account a transaction for $5,000 would be created to > transfer $5,000 from the Principle Expense account to the Liability account > for the loan there by paying down the loan. > > The advantage to doing things this way is that through the year all of your > Liability payments are tracked as an Expense and can be included in the > budget report. The down side is that if you want to look back at a previous > year's budget the numbers will be messed up because each Expense and Income > account will have been closed out. I haven't found the downside to be that > big of a deal because when I close out an account I have a total amount that > I spent for that year which is normally all I ever need. From the total > number I can then plan for the budget for the next year or see how my > spending has gone up or down year of year. > > So in short I agree with Forest and would like to keep Liabilities out of the > report. I will see what updates I have made since I last submitted to > GnuCash and see about submitting a new version. > > Thanks, > Ben > > On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 8:56 AM, apowell...@gmail.com <apowell...@gmail.com> > wrote: > Forest, > I agree with your response and I am not interested in changing any rules of > finance. A simpler solution from how the current report is built would be to > add another section for assets and liabilities, based on the BBS layout and > formula. A user could either project for either or just one (me personally > would just like to see liabilities I am paying for). > > This would address the fact that currently there is no way to project a > balanced budget without exporting the info to a spreadsheet or manually > calculating the information. Where in my opinion both of these options are > more time consuming whether at setup(spreadsheet) or at the time of > (calculator) . > > Needless to say my wishlist would be one of the following; if there is a way > to actually pay on a liability and to get it to report as an expense that > would be all the better for this report, or GnuCash to actually show the > totals in the built in report so a user could get the info from one screen. > > Best regards, > Andre Powell > (This is the first long email I have written on my Eris and not so bad of an > experience) > > ----- Reply message ----- > From: "Forest Bond" <for...@alittletooquiet.net> > Date: Thu, Jan 14, 2010 10:36 PM > Subject: Advanced Budget Report Question > To: "Andre Powell" <apowell...@gmail.com> > Cc: <ben.john...@gmail.com>, <gnucash-devel@gnucash.org>, > <gnucash-u...@gnucash.org> > > > > Hi, > > On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 07:33:08PM -0500, Andre Powell wrote: > > I think that it would be fair to say that if I would decrease an asset in my > > budget it would be an expense (towards something) and if I increased it > > would > > go towards income. Regarding a liability much the same if I decreased it > > would > > be an expense, and increased it would be "income", although obviously debt. > > Although, I am no CPA I do not have an "official" answer, but it makes sense > > to me. In a more simplified way, and the way I think that most people would > > do > > a budget count the payments to a liability as an addition to your expenses > > and > > the math will roll on from there. > > > > With all of that said, what are the odds of you adding Liabilities to the > > report with them impacting expenses. :-) > > I would very much prefer assets and liabilities to not be handled this way. > > It is not consistent with current handling in the Budget Income Statement > (BIS) > and Budget Balance Sheet (BBS) reports. BIS only looks at income and expense > accounts. BBS assumes that positive values entered for assets are savings and > therefore increase the value of those assets and that positive values entered > for liabilities represent liability repayments and therefore decrease the > liability. > > If this interpretation needs to change, so be it, but I would really like to > see > some discussion and consensus before the behavior gets less consistent than it > is now. > > In any case, I think asset/liability values being somehow interpreted as > income/expenses is wrong. > > Thanks, > Forest > -- > Forest Bond > http://www.alittletooquiet.net > http://www.pytagsfs.org > > > _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
