Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2023 08:45:18 -0700
From: john <jra...@ceridwen.us>
To: Charles Crossan <crossan...@gmail.com>
Cc: gnucash-user@gnucash.org
Subject: Re: [GNC] User defined currencies in "Expense Accounts"
Message-ID: <204d86ba-9b99-470c-960d-b15cd7ef0...@ceridwen.us>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Mar 12, 2023, at 7:51 AM, Charles Crossan <crossan...@gmail.com> wrote:
While doing my monthly ritual of breaking down my utility bill into
GNUcash, I had the idea of using a user defined currency for electricity
(Kilowatt Hours - kWh) and Water (gallons). I'd like to be able to chart
my "real usage" as well as rate fluctuations.
I've been using GNUCash for over 10 years, and have created a bunch of
custom currencies for stocks / etc; however, this is the first time I
thought about using it for tracking utility units.
I got as far as creating the kWh currency when I realized that there's no
way to choose a "non ISO 4217" currency for expense accounts.
The GNUCash documentation seems to indicate that Income and Expense
accounts are only able to use "National Currencies" (12.2.1.1. User-Defined
Currencies -
https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_manual.html
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v4/C/gnucash-guide/currency_manual.html>).
I'm wondering:
1. Is there a functional reason for this requirement; or is it an
arbitrary UI restriction?
2. Would the application behave erratically if I were to manually edit
the expense account in SQL to use my own currency?
3. How is everyone else handling utility tracking? I realize I'm
probably a tad crazy for wanting this level of detail.
It's part of GAAP/IFS: Expense and Income are flavors of Equity and that can only be currency; in fact it's supposed to be only in the book currency, but GnuCash doesn't enforce that in part because it doesn't historically recognize a book currency.
I don't see anything in the engine that will misbehave if you do that, but the
account edit window might act up if you try to edit the account after making
the change.
I use a spreadsheet to capture the amount of electricity, natural gas, and
water we use monthly, but since they installed smart meters a few years ago the
utility company has provided a nice usage display on their website with hourly,
daily, and monthly charts, though the daily and hourly data is available for
only a couple of years back.
Regards,
John Ralls
I am a third vote for "use a spreadsheet instead." And I've taken a
currency I don't need and repurposed it to track rewards card points
(not updated with Finance::Quote of course), so I am sympathetic to your
goals.
At least in my geographic area, part of the US, utility billing for
electric and gas has enough moving parts that for tracking you really do
want an entire spreadsheet, not just a "currency."
Some components to consider:
* meter read dates aren't always monthly - officially, our meter reads
by the utility happen every other month...except when the meter reader
is sick... or the meter reader gets the wrong number...or there is a
worldwide pandemic... (We send in our own readings recently, which
helps a bit.)
* meter read dates are irregular - sometimes the utility co has meter
reads (ours and theirs) 25 days apart, up to 35 days, very inconsistent.
Averaging out KWH per time period is better done on a spreadsheet.
* bills can include fixed and variable components - "service to your
home" for gas and electric may be two flat fees
* time-of-day usage - some utility companies do this, another spanner in
the works
* price per KWH can have multiple components - here, we have the basic
price per KWH, but then added on are per-unit prices for delivery
charges, taxes, and more
* energy supply companies - in some states of the USA, you can choose
your supplier for gas or electric, which can change the rates you pay
for power
* spreadsheets are nicer for calculations - you can do a 12-month
rolling average to account for seasonal increases in use to see whether
you are really increasing/decreasing usage over time, get a trend in
part of your costs over time
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@gnucash.org
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
