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I've been using Gnucash since 2020 to manage personal expenses and income, and it has made the world of a difference. In particular, I find the income statement

I've been using Gnucash since 2020 to manage personal expenses and income, and it has made the world of a difference. In particular, I find the income statement feature very powerful when I'm doing an end-of-year review of my spending. In terms of time commitment, about 20 mins every two weeks seems to be enough for logging all my transactions into Gnucash - I have 3 bank accounts, 1 investment account and 1 retirement account.

Liquid_Fire 4y ago
That's interesting, my experience was different from yours. While it is indeed very useful to see all my spending, I found it took way too much of my time to maintain it. This was partially because the UI has a lot of issues (especially the bank statement importing - if you don't do everything just right, you have to redo it from scratch, and it is very easy to make it fail), and partially because the ability to automatically assign transactions to categories was too limited (it expects the reference to match exactly, but in many cases it doesn't, so I would have to spend a lot of time manually assigning things to categories, again from a really bad UI). I have to add, this was 5-6 years ago, so it's possible that the UI has improved since then.
- hevsuit 4y ago
  I gave up early on with importing bank statements. Instead I just manually create each gnucash entry for each transaction on my online bank statement. If the final gnucash account balance matches my actual bank balance then I know I did it correctly. If it does not balance, I persist in finding the mistyped entry. This method relies on balancing to the cent each time, since I use my actual bank balance as the target. It is indeed tedious at first, however I find that 1) manually entering transactions helps me spot problem payments quickly (comprimised credit card, overcharges on direct debits etc.) and 2) the predictive auto-complete feature speeds entries up over time, as most entries are assigned to either a a)groceries, b)eating-out or c)bills expense account. You just press 'Tab' when the correct suggestion pops-up after entring the first few letter, and the line entry gets auto-filled. I still usually need to change the numerical value, but the correct expense account and transaction detail are prepopulated correctly most of the time. Overall I would recommend giving it another chance.
  - ycombinete 4y ago
    If you don’t mind my asking, how many transactions go through your account a month?
    - hevsuit 4y ago
      Roughly 100 transactions per month I would say. On average 2 card based transactions per day --> 60 transactions per month. Then bills, incidentals and direct debits make up the remaining 40.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    I use hledger and while I also use my actual bank balances as targets (and often I do get obsessive, to the point of chasing down cents), I think it would be impossible for me to do it without importing my bank statements. It's not the transactions themselves that I find tedious, it's all the ways I split them. My partner and I split many transactions together and we often travel with friends so I charge friends over Zelle/Venmo for transactions we had while out. Importing transactions from my banks makes it significantly easier to reconcile all of these, especially when I'm on a vacation. Ease of writing importers was a huge driving factor when I switched to hledger from GNUCash. It's amazing discipline that you enter these manually. I remember that GNUCash has decent autocomplete which certainly helps. I don't think I'd be able to keep up with my finances myself if I had to input it all myself. I personally have anywhere from 50-100 transactions a month.
- elesiuta 4y ago
  I use HomeBank [1] because I find the UI a lot simpler than GnuCash and importing mostly just works, with pretty good automatic category assignment that lets you use regular expressions. The only quirk is that one of my accounts uses a non-standard ordering for its csv file which needs fixing before HomeBank will accept it since the import UI is limited. I also find that it is useful to track the database file under git. [1] http://homebank.free.fr/ http://homebank.free.fr/
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Yup, this is what I ended up using for some time. Though, and YMMV, after doing this in a dedicated way for 2-3 years, I ended up stopping entirely. Probably because more than anything, all the pretty graphs and tracking was mildly interesting -- but it mostly just taught me that I spend reasonably and don't have much of a need to track every little transaction.
tinalumfoil 4y ago
I really like GnuCash but I've struggled with the data entry portion. Most of my transactions are on credit cards, so at the end of every month I'll import maybe 100 transactions in CSV. That import form does not let me bulk change how certain transactions should be imported so for instance if I have 10 transactions in a row that should be deposited to Expenses:Groceries that's 10 clicks. Another pet peeve is the time order. A lot of times I'll have have a credit and debit on the same day, but the order I enter these depends on the order I'm going through my accounts. Since GnuCash only lets you put a date, it'll look like the account was overdrawn when it's simply mis-ordering the transactions. The only way I know to fix is to re-enter both transactions.
- fatcow 4y ago
  You'll like https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/1371 https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/1371 then :)
- hevsuit 4y ago
  See my other reply re imports. I say dont bother and instead do it by hand as it speeds up over time. Yes the same-day ordering is visually quite annoying, although the final end-of-day/end-of-statement balance is really the only value that matters.
- olejorgenb 4y ago
  > Since GnuCash only lets you put a date !
- fatcow 4y ago
  It orders transactions by (1) Transaction Date (2) Split Action (3) Transaction Num (4) Entry Date (5) Description
szszrk 4y ago
Do you analyze all smaller spendings, like groceries, all credit card and cash purchases? I'm using CC for almost everything but there is still a lot that I miss because of random cash spendings.
- hevsuit 4y ago
  Cash is a tricky one. Generally I keep cash spends to a minimum. Any small cash withdrawls from my account are generally expense straight into Expenses:Cash Misc. and I don't bother tracking the inidividal cash payments. However if it is a large cash amount (e.g. rent payment) then I will transfer from Asset:Bank to Asset:Cash before entering into Expenses:Rent.
YVoyiatzis 4y ago
If you don't mind me asking, what method or software were you using using prior to Gnucash?
- hevsuit 4y ago
  I never did any personal bookkeeping before I used GnuCash. I was however self-learning basic accounting for my startup at the time where we use the cloud-based software package Sage Accounting. After a few months of using Sage I was interested in applying similar methods to my personal finances and discovered Gnucash along the way. Edit: phrasing
emacsen 4y ago
Have you tried any of the plain text accounting packages? I'm really interested in lived experience of using Gnucash vs, say Beancount or HLedger.
- hevsuit 4y ago
  No unfortunately, I've only used Gnucash. One of the main reasons I stick with Gnucash is the monolithic file format. If one day I need an accountant to review my finances, or if I suffer an audit by the tax man, I can send on the single .gnucash file with all my data. While Gnucash's UI is not the greatest, an accountant/auditor can easily install Gnucash and generate reports with only basic knowledge. Another nice feature is the file linkage features, where I can directly link my payslip pdf files to the gnucash entries. I have folder structure on my GDrive with all of my stored bills, payslips etc. If required, I can zip up my Gnucash file and corresponding documents folder and the reviewer can instantly access important financial documentation from within the Gnucash application. Gnucash uses relative file paths for sourcing linked documents - all a reviewer has to do is specify the head directory and all the linked documents will open as usual. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think this is a feature in the text-only approaches.
  - emacsen 4y ago
    > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think this is a feature in the text-only approaches. I unless I'm missing something, all those features are available to me now. > If one day I need an accountant to review my finances, or if I suffer an audit by the tax man, I can send on the single .gnucash file with all my data. I can do the same with a git repo, or a zipfile. > an accountant/auditor can easily install Gnucash and generate reports with only basic knowledge. I'm not sure I understand the advantage here. A professional could install beancount too, and run the same scripts I do. My real life experience is they don't actually want this level of depth. > Another nice feature is the file linkage features, where I can directly link my payslip pdf files to the gnucash entries. I have folder structure on my GDrive with all of my stored bills, payslips etc. You can link to external documents in Beancount and possibly the others and it's kept in the same archival system: https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.html#documents https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.h... It looks like I'm not missing out?

Liquid_Fire 4y ago

That's interesting, my experience was different from yours. While it is indeed very useful to see all my spending, I found it took way too much of my time to maintain it. This was partially because the UI has a lot of issues (especially the bank statement importing - if you don't do everything just right, you have to redo it from scratch, and it is very easy to make it fail), and partially because the ability to automatically assign transactions to categories was too limited (it expects the reference to match exactly, but in many cases it doesn't, so I would have to spend a lot of time manually assigning things to categories, again from a really bad UI). I have to add, this was 5-6 years ago, so it's possible that the UI has improved since then.

hevsuit 4y ago
I gave up early on with importing bank statements. Instead I just manually create each gnucash entry for each transaction on my online bank statement. If the final gnucash account balance matches my actual bank balance then I know I did it correctly. If it does not balance, I persist in finding the mistyped entry. This method relies on balancing to the cent each time, since I use my actual bank balance as the target. It is indeed tedious at first, however I find that 1) manually entering transactions helps me spot problem payments quickly (comprimised credit card, overcharges on direct debits etc.) and 2) the predictive auto-complete feature speeds entries up over time, as most entries are assigned to either a a)groceries, b)eating-out or c)bills expense account. You just press 'Tab' when the correct suggestion pops-up after entring the first few letter, and the line entry gets auto-filled. I still usually need to change the numerical value, but the correct expense account and transaction detail are prepopulated correctly most of the time. Overall I would recommend giving it another chance.
- ycombinete 4y ago
  If you don’t mind my asking, how many transactions go through your account a month?
  - hevsuit 4y ago
    Roughly 100 transactions per month I would say. On average 2 card based transactions per day --> 60 transactions per month. Then bills, incidentals and direct debits make up the remaining 40.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  I use hledger and while I also use my actual bank balances as targets (and often I do get obsessive, to the point of chasing down cents), I think it would be impossible for me to do it without importing my bank statements. It's not the transactions themselves that I find tedious, it's all the ways I split them. My partner and I split many transactions together and we often travel with friends so I charge friends over Zelle/Venmo for transactions we had while out. Importing transactions from my banks makes it significantly easier to reconcile all of these, especially when I'm on a vacation. Ease of writing importers was a huge driving factor when I switched to hledger from GNUCash. It's amazing discipline that you enter these manually. I remember that GNUCash has decent autocomplete which certainly helps. I don't think I'd be able to keep up with my finances myself if I had to input it all myself. I personally have anywhere from 50-100 transactions a month.
elesiuta 4y ago
I use HomeBank [1] because I find the UI a lot simpler than GnuCash and importing mostly just works, with pretty good automatic category assignment that lets you use regular expressions. The only quirk is that one of my accounts uses a non-standard ordering for its csv file which needs fixing before HomeBank will accept it since the import UI is limited. I also find that it is useful to track the database file under git. [1] http://homebank.free.fr/ http://homebank.free.fr/
- jrm4 4y ago
  Yup, this is what I ended up using for some time. Though, and YMMV, after doing this in a dedicated way for 2-3 years, I ended up stopping entirely. Probably because more than anything, all the pretty graphs and tracking was mildly interesting -- but it mostly just taught me that I spend reasonably and don't have much of a need to track every little transaction.

tinalumfoil 4y ago

I really like GnuCash but I've struggled with the data entry portion. Most of my transactions are on credit cards, so at the end of every month I'll import maybe 100 transactions in CSV. That import form does not let me bulk change how certain transactions should be imported so for instance if I have 10 transactions in a row that should be deposited to Expenses:Groceries that's 10 clicks. Another pet peeve is the time order. A lot of times I'll have have a credit and debit on the same day, but the order I enter these depends on the order I'm going through my accounts. Since GnuCash only lets you put a date, it'll look like the account was overdrawn when it's simply mis-ordering the transactions. The only way I know to fix is to re-enter both transactions.

fatcow 4y ago
You'll like https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/1371 https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/1371 then :)
hevsuit 4y ago
See my other reply re imports. I say dont bother and instead do it by hand as it speeds up over time. Yes the same-day ordering is visually quite annoying, although the final end-of-day/end-of-statement balance is really the only value that matters.
olejorgenb 4y ago
> Since GnuCash only lets you put a date !
fatcow 4y ago
It orders transactions by (1) Transaction Date (2) Split Action (3) Transaction Num (4) Entry Date (5) Description

szszrk 4y ago

Do you analyze all smaller spendings, like groceries, all credit card and cash purchases? I'm using CC for almost everything but there is still a lot that I miss because of random cash spendings.

hevsuit 4y ago
Cash is a tricky one. Generally I keep cash spends to a minimum. Any small cash withdrawls from my account are generally expense straight into Expenses:Cash Misc. and I don't bother tracking the inidividal cash payments. However if it is a large cash amount (e.g. rent payment) then I will transfer from Asset:Bank to Asset:Cash before entering into Expenses:Rent.

YVoyiatzis 4y ago

If you don't mind me asking, what method or software were you using using prior to Gnucash?

hevsuit 4y ago
I never did any personal bookkeeping before I used GnuCash. I was however self-learning basic accounting for my startup at the time where we use the cloud-based software package Sage Accounting. After a few months of using Sage I was interested in applying similar methods to my personal finances and discovered Gnucash along the way. Edit: phrasing

emacsen 4y ago

Have you tried any of the plain text accounting packages? I'm really interested in lived experience of using Gnucash vs, say Beancount or HLedger.

hevsuit 4y ago
No unfortunately, I've only used Gnucash. One of the main reasons I stick with Gnucash is the monolithic file format. If one day I need an accountant to review my finances, or if I suffer an audit by the tax man, I can send on the single .gnucash file with all my data. While Gnucash's UI is not the greatest, an accountant/auditor can easily install Gnucash and generate reports with only basic knowledge. Another nice feature is the file linkage features, where I can directly link my payslip pdf files to the gnucash entries. I have folder structure on my GDrive with all of my stored bills, payslips etc. If required, I can zip up my Gnucash file and corresponding documents folder and the reviewer can instantly access important financial documentation from within the Gnucash application. Gnucash uses relative file paths for sourcing linked documents - all a reviewer has to do is specify the head directory and all the linked documents will open as usual. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think this is a feature in the text-only approaches.
- emacsen 4y ago
  > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I dont think this is a feature in the text-only approaches. I unless I'm missing something, all those features are available to me now. > If one day I need an accountant to review my finances, or if I suffer an audit by the tax man, I can send on the single .gnucash file with all my data. I can do the same with a git repo, or a zipfile. > an accountant/auditor can easily install Gnucash and generate reports with only basic knowledge. I'm not sure I understand the advantage here. A professional could install beancount too, and run the same scripts I do. My real life experience is they don't actually want this level of depth. > Another nice feature is the file linkage features, where I can directly link my payslip pdf files to the gnucash entries. I have folder structure on my GDrive with all of my stored bills, payslips etc. You can link to external documents in Beancount and possibly the others and it's kept in the same archival system: https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.html#documents https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_language_syntax.h... It looks like I'm not missing out?