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GnuCash 5.9
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoGnuCash is solid. One thing that I love: I have full control over my data, and its stored as a simple xml (also supports SQLite, but why use more complex when simpler works just as well?) I have a few (comparatively minor) complaints about GnuCash, but they're around UI. Things like: it would be nice to assign all matching (eg Regen) transactions to a selected account, and stuff like that. But overall, having something that is A) simple and B) I control fully, beats everything else. The principles of free software show, I guess.
- equivocates 2y agoI would argue xml is more complex, but to each his own. :)
- MaxBarraclough 2y agoIt might be easier to use, but it's not a simpler technology.
- trollied 2y ago[flagged]
- badsectoracula 2y agoIt is not weird at all if you think of it from an implementation perspective: it is much easier and simpler to write an XML parser than it is to write a loader for SQLite databases, even if you do not write an SQL parser for it. After all there are way more independent XML parsers implemented in a variety of programming languages than there are SQLite implementations :-P.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoHow is SQLite DB simpler than a human readable markup language?!
- jjav 2y agoIf you intend to read it by human eyes, you're right. That seems like a rare edge case though. If you want to interact with the data outside of the software, the common case is you're writing some script for that, in which case being able to use SQL is much easier.
- kaba0 2y agoBeing familiar != simple. Sure, more people have used SQL, but it’s definitely not impossible to just query XMLs. Hell, if someone has written JS they are likely familiar with DOM manipulations, which are more or less the same.
- consteval 2y agoI agree, I think this is what people miss when it comes to machine processing versus human processing. Human processing benefits from pretty colors and organization. Machine processing is almost the exact opposite, it benefits from data definition and strong guarantees around invariants. A graph is often the best way for a human to process something. But it's awful for a computer - computers can't see! At least not easily. A nice in-between is something like XML. But if it's primarily gonna be interacted with by a computer, might as well make it a database.
- bigstrat2003 2y agoI agree with bdjsiqoocwk that XML is way simpler than SQLite. In the case where I'm making changes by hand, it's much easier to open an XML file in a text editor and edit it, than it is to figure out an SQL query to do the same thing. In the case where I'm making changes programmatically, libraries will handle the complexity of XML for me, but I will still have to struggle through figuring out an SQL query if I'm trying to connect to SQLite. SQLite is easier if you're comfortable with SQL to the extent that it's little to no effort for you to write queries. But most people aren't that comfortable, and XML offers them significant advantages. I certainly prefer XML at any rate.
- noisy_boy 2y agoDisclaimer: no stats I bet if we do a random poll of the people here, more people would be comfortable writing a SQL query then doing xpath processing to query the same data.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoI bed that's true. And that's nothing to do with which is more complex. I'm not saying SQLite is more difficult to use, I'm saying it's more complex. You're confusing the two.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoSuppose you don't have SQLite, how do you open a SQLite database? The only way is you have to re-implement SQLite from scratch. Good luck with that. Now imagine you don't have vim, how do you open an XML file? You can use any of other thousands of text editors out there, or any of tens of libs in tens of different languages. I think your take that sqlite is simpler than a text file is the weird one.
- jjav 2y ago> Suppose you don't have SQLite, how do you open a SQLite database? The only way is you have to re-implement SQLite from scratch. Good luck with that. Or, you know, install SQLite. Although it is so ubiquitous that it is almost certainly installed already. Even on a mac it's there already. Or if you are on some system where it is not, a single package install away.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoYes, I know what to do. Doesn't change the fact it's more complex. In fact, any database is more complex than a text file. You sound like the kind of person to push at work for a database when a file would suffice, introducing needless complexity.
- jjav 2y ago> In fact, any database is more complex than a text file. This statement is true, at a very superficial level. But it is missing all the nunace that goes into why would someone be using this file. Are you comparing opening a text file in a text editor vs. opening the db.sqlite file in a text editor? Yes, of course the text file is more usable. But what is the use case of just staring at the file? I can't imagine any. If you are someone who wants to programmatically use the contents of that file (outside gnucash application), surely you are writing code to process the data. And thus, being able to use SQL is massively more convenient.
- consteval 2y ago> You sound like the kind of person to push at work for a database when a file would suffice, introducing needless complexity Simplicity versus complexity is not a linear scale like you describe. Complex tools can lead to simpler implementations. This is the key people are missing. For example, C++ is much more complex than C. Okay, now build a generic sequential data structure. It's a quarter the LOC in C++ versus C, and it's a much simpler implementation. Because C lacks the tools, so we have to use macros or maybe void pointers. In this case, imagine you need to aggregate lots of data from different places, eliminate some of it, collapse some of it etc. For a reporting type thing. Well, SQLite is more complex than XML. But doing this in SQL is much less complex, because XML lacks the tools. SQL is built for this, so you can do it in a quarter the amount of code, or maybe even less.
- BeetleB 2y agoFar too often I've ended up with corrupt SQLite db files. At times it wasn't discovered until much later (i.e. most queries would still work). Very hard to fix (in fact, I never did fix any). With XML, under version control, you can identify easily what went wrong.
- klysm 2y agoXML is human readable, but barely. I do not trust any executable other than SQLite, postgres and a few others to correctly manage state on disk without corrupting it.
- mszcz 2y agoI tried it years ago but finally settled on HLedger. Like GnuCash, I own and control my data, but with HLedger I have an ability to go in and correct or change something (and not in a "accounting-appropriate" way) in bulk just by editing it in Sublime Text. Then again, my use case is pretty basic and not mission critical so YMMV.
- gavinhoward 2y agoThis is absolutely a valid reason to not use GnuCash. As for myself, I agree that the XML format is not great, but I use the SQLite format, which allows me to write scripts on it.
- ranger_danger 2y agoYou can write scripts to transform XML documents as well.
- gavinhoward 2y agoTrue, but I don't want to. And that is the biggest barrier of all.
- cryptonector 2y agoI was going to say what GP said, but, yeah, XSLT is just no fun to write by comparison to SQL.
- atemerev 2y agoHardly anybody was using XSLT even when XML was all the rage. Python scripts work just fine.
- cryptonector 2y agoXSLT 1 was very limited. XSLT 2 was too late. That's my take. I actually like XSLT 2, but it's so verbose... -- it's horrible. Once in a while I dream of adding proper XML support to jq just to be able to use jq as a pithy alternative to XSLT.
- Okx 2y agoGnuCash and KDE Money always seemed very similar to me. Why should I use GnuCash over KDE money?
- Andrex 2y agoFirst thing to come to mind is if Gnome's your DE and you prefer more-native-feeling apps. Vice-versa if you're using KDE instead.
- aidenn0 2y agoGetting OT here, but I've tended to prefer Gnome apps with a KDE desktop. The latest UI pessimizations in Gnome may having me switch completely away from Gnome, with the "You must click on sub menus to open them" being the final straw.
- consteval 2y agoI concur, KDE applications tend to be more traditional. I don't mean necessarily in style, I think they can look quite good, but rather in form. Personally, I think Desktop software UX peaked maybe 10 years ago so to me this is a good thing. Assuming a typical experience of mouse, full-size keyboard, and monitor. Things do change UX wise when you switch to a laptop IMO.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 2y agoI looked carefully at GnuCash before settling on Beancount (or plain-text accounting in general) for personal finance software. The deal breaker for me was the underlying XML or SQLite formats of GnuCash. These are not terribly amenable to scripting, either for ingesting raw data or reporting. Whereas this is basically the point of plain-text tools like Beancount or HLedger. GnuCash feels too much like a walled-garden compared to plain-text tools. The plain-text format requires more work at first, but after you get the hang of it (and provided you have some background in scripting software) it is awesome.
- massysett 2y agoTo each their own I guess: my experience is the exact opposite. Plain text looks simple to human eyes but parsing it in a structured way is a nightmare and scripting edits to plain text is a mess. Databases on the other hand are built for this. After years of dissatisfaction with plain text accounting and many hours spent trying to improve it, I now use SQLite and it has been an enormous improvement.
- GlibMonkeyDeath 2y agoI agree with using the tool that works best for your purpose. For me, I found that the SQLite models of GnuCash aren't straightforward to query. That's why Beancount created its own query language. Martin Blais has a good discussion of why a traditional database doesn't quite fit for many accounting purposes https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_query_language.html https://beancount.github.io/docs/beancount_query_language.ht...
- FredPret 2y agoI build my transaction list in Excel and then export that to .beancount with a very simple script. You could do the same with sql except even easier. That gives me the benefits of Fava and all the other PTA tools as well.
- ryansouza 2y agoPart of the reason I settled on beancount over h/ledger was the ease of writing python plugins to handle mutations and rules, and reuse the official parse/output as a library. Plaintext is nice for git but I only feel that when fixup-ing a single or small number of transactions. It does feel nice to be have all the details of a transaction in one place in a visually useful way. For one-off hacking and such it definitely feels easier to write O(n^4) python looping over trying to describe things with SQL and working at a scale where it doesn’t matter. Plaintext as a UI into a SQL store seems an interesting project. I would love a git integration for committing changes after diff review and being able to stage individual txns or parts. Many years ago I was frustrated with ledger’s more loosey goosey syntax and trying these things and eventually gave up whatever the idea was at the time. I like the idea of a constant bidrectional sql<->plaintext that provides a requirement for reproducible parsing and serializing
- garupoliq 2y agoI tried to get into it several times but eventually came to the conclusion that it is, despite the unassuming name and the advertisement as a tool for personal finances probably more targeted at professional accountants or people who have some training in accounting, rather than just being a tool for tracking private finances in an intuitive way.
- balderdash 2y agoI don’t disagree with you, but I’d suggest that the accounting knowledge is pretty easy to pick up, and getting that under your belt will actually be incredibly valuable
- blacklion 2y agoI've tried many personal accounting software and all of them (but old Pcoket Money for PalmOS!) are very unhelpful in filling in expenses. If you need to record whole shop visit as one transaction (like "Food at Lidl") it is tolerable, but as soon as you want to enter each line in your receipt as separate part of split transaction (like, food:milk = 2 euro, food:bread = 1 euro, food:eggs = 3 euro, food:meat:pork = 8 euro, etc) you need to type everything again and again without good suggestions, based on your previous history. Such suggestions could be very sophisticated, taking counterpart and other parameters and suggest "food:bread" and price by letters "br" if counterpart is "Lidl" or "clothing:bra" and other price if counterpart is "Victoria Secret", for example, but, alas, nothing I've tried, support this. Really, old (PalmOS 3.0!) Pocket Money was a breeze, and everything else, Desktop or Mobile, is much, much worse in this aspect. Also, I think, that when you have all you transactions vrty detailed, it is better to have nested "categories" and not nested "accounts". It is almost cosmetic difference, but it is strange for me to have "cache" and "food:meat:pork" as same type of objects. I don't transfer money to "food:meat:pork", I spend money for it. I transfer money to the shop, not to the product! As far as I know, professional accounting systems doesn't have account for each asset of the firm, like different accounts for monitors, laptops, computers and (computer) mices. Maybe, I don't find it yet? Any suggestions?
- codedokode 2y agoIt would be better if the software could just scan the receipt. And if you live in the country with electronic receipts (like Russia) then you can get them to your email in electronic form or find online by identifiers on a paper receipt.
- stouset 2y agoIs it actually all that useful to you to track each receipt line-item? For a few specific types of purchases, maybe, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you might be taking on needless work that doesn't create value for you anywhere near that level of effort.
- xupybd 2y agoJust tracking no but allocating yes. If you plan ahead you know how much money you actually have and can plan better. I find I save way more with a proper budget in place.
- dmwilcox 2y agoRan a business with it, payroll, administered the 401k accounts, etc. Solid. Expense tracking good enough for a business with limited expenses, or background as a bookkeeper (my teenage job). But being able to generate balance sheet and profit&loss reports for my accountant, golden.
- _benj 2y agoI tried some time ago GnuCash after getting tired of plain text accounting. I’m not sure what it was but I couldn’t get it working for me. Tried HomeBank afterwards and was blown away by how accessible it is in comparison. I might give another try at GnuCash to track something like business/project expenses but it was rather hard to use for my personal finances.
- misnome 2y agoI don't like the GNUcash model very much, it is a bit fiddly to use, and is pretty hard to get the right stats I want out of it. I've used and settled on several other packages in the past. But GNUCash existed when I first got a job decades ago. GNUCash exists today. I don't think any other package really matches the endurance.
- DaoVeles 2y agoIt is charming in that it has that mid 90s utility design. It is absolutely frustrating because it has that mid 90s utility design. I don't think I have seen any other utility hasnt really progressed on interface design like GNUcash. Like they built a prototype went "Nailed it!" And then moved onto back end stuff while ignoring all input from users.
- jjav 2y agoThat's a big win! There are very few things more frustrating than software that keeps changing the UI just because some designed somewhere wants to feel busy. Make it work well and then stop fiddling with it.
- moe_sc 2y agoThere is a middleground. Of course, change for the sake of change sucks, you just have to relearn for no benefit. But change for the sake of implementing m New features and having a well thought out redesign after collecting issues over a decade or so makes software more accessible and allows you to streamline workflows where new features just got tacked on over time.
- jjav 2y ago> I don't think any other package really matches the endurance. This is hugely valuable. I've been using gnucash since the late 90s, and have the all data files going back to 2000.
- lloydatkinson 2y agoI’ve still yet to find anything that matched the usefulness and straightforwardness of Microsoft Money.
- DaoVeles 2y agoThis is the only reason I have any experience with these apps. When MS sunset Money and compatibility started to get wonky, my in-laws were at a loss at what to do. We never did find an alternative. They do however have a seperate Win 7 PC just for Money, which at there age isnt a huge problem but for others that is not viable long term.
- Karrot_Kream 2y agoWhy not just setup a VM for Money specifically?
- gavindean90 2y agoBecause they had a spare M.
- Postosuchus 2y agoSecond that. Microsoft Money was _amazingly_ practical and useful - head and shoulders above Quicken. It is a real shame, Microsoft didn't find a better solution than to sunset it.
- rnadomvirlabe 2y agoI used GnuCash for a while, but I ended up spending too much time making the online sync settings work. For accounts where I had to manually download and import, I would end up putting off importing them due to the friction. I now pay for Quicken Classic and it's some of the best money I spend each year. The online account connections consistently work as expected, and it gets the job done for much less of a headache overall.
- jkaplowitz 2y agoI have to care about accounts in the US, Canada (likely soon to vanish from my list), EU (two countries), and Mexico. I would love to have an option to pay for like Quicken Classic with all the banking connections reliably working, but I don’t think there is a single one that even covers the US and any of the major EU economies, let alone everywhere I care about. Quicken Classic is US and Canada only. Do you know of such an option, or even multiple options that can be sensibly used together to achieve this? At this point, given how many “access your transaction data” companies choose not to cross the US-EU bridge in a way that’s viable for direct personal use, I have to think there’s some reason around incompatible bureaucracy or similar. Or maybe not enough people have international enough lives to want it.
- 9cb14c1ec0 2y agoFor personal accounting, MoneyManagerEx has a much simpler UI than GnuCash.
- snvzz 2y agoNo double-book accounting thus toy and not worth consideration.
- Seattle3503 2y agoHow is gnucash? I've been looking for a less data intrusive budgeting app. The other I saw was Firefly III.
- bbor 2y agoI know the aesthetic is part of the “simple” appeal, but it’s just inexcusable to not have a responsive (aka “mobile friendly”) site in 2024. It’s also a great example of why I don’t trust hand-rolled guis like this, if I can avoid it: the standards are standard for a reason.
- yazzku 2y agoWhy is it inexcusable? And what standards? This is for serious finance, not for swiping yolo stonks on Robin Hood.
- bbor 2y agoWell, the applicable standard in this case would be “Web Development” writ large. Responsiveness is a start, but consistency is one of the most important design principles, and this site seems to disrespect user expectations about layout, menus, and interactable elements, from a glance. Responsiveness in particular is “inexcusable” to miss because it’s so easy that it’s practically boilerplate these days, and the lack makes it impossible to read on mobile. Will I be convinced by this update to try GnuCash? We’ll never know, because I can’t read the changelog! I know I’m a zoomer, but zoomers have money too! A little. Sometimes. And for what it’s worth: I’m pretty sure this is an accounting app, not a finance app ;)
- consteval 2y agoTo be fair it's a desktop-only application. Even if you did read it on mobile you'd have to move to a full fat computer to download it, anyway. Yeah conversions and stuff matter.
- yazzku 2y agoI don't know what you mean by "responsiveness". Html/Css/Javascript is dogshit when it comes to latency. I assume you're talking about fluid layouts, which can be accomplished just as well with native GUI libraries like Qt. Note that Qt runs like a champ in embedded devices; I don't think it can possibly get more responsive than that. > and this site seems to disrespect user expectations about layout, menus, and interactable elements, from a glance. Why does this matter? GNUCash is a desktop application. The website is not all that relevant. And I have a different opinion about expectations anyway. The website is functional and easy to navigate, unlike the column-style, white space wasteland that "mobile-friendly" websites typically are.
- jldugger 2y agoTime to read the release notes and see if it fixes the stock price fetching at all.
- PeterZaitsev 2y agoLove Gnucash... allows me to look at my expense history for more than a decade. I think it would benefit from some changes in the next major version though - the GL of account is good but requires a lot of work for example to track vendors. If I want to track where I'm buying my groceries I have to create separate account for those, rather than being able to optionally specify vendor.
- bdjsiqoocwk 2y agoRight! And this isnt a difficult feature to implement either. You just need that A) every transaction, or better every leg of a transaction, supports tag, and B) the reports break down by tag.
- noveltyaccount 2y agoGnuCash holds a special place in my heart. My first couple years out of college, running a very tight budget on a lean income. Every time I shopped I'd bring my receipt home and enter it diligently on the ledger. Everything reconciled always. It was a ton of work :)
- JaggerFoo 2y agoI use GnuCash for business accounting and it does what I need. I don't use QuickBooks as VC's recommend in blog posts. QB has some convenient features, but that is not enough for me to pay the price QB is asking. I don't need VC money or a CPA. I haven't tried using GnuCash with Sqlite, but I would like to experiment when I get the time. Is it reliable? I used to be a technical/functional engineer for Oracle EBS, so I dealt with very complex schemas that interlinked with each other especially in the sub-ledgers. I've always toyed with the idea of adding Revenue Recognition functionality to GnuCash but am too busy to do so. Perhaps after seeing the schema in Sqlite I can take a shot at it. Cheers
- TZubiri 2y agoYet another instance of free software succeding for its free as in free beer qualities
- VonGuard 2y agoIt's great for personal or very small businesses but god help you if you are building a real startup with GNUCash. I am speaking from experience here, GNUCash zealotry is a plague. I honestly wish this project basically did not exist, because the business world despises GNUCash, ONLY cares about QuickBooks, and using anything else is a giant waste of everyone's time. Believe me, I have been fighting this fight in non-profits and startups since the early 2000's. It's not a fight ANYONE should ever have. I USED TO BE THE "WE MUST USE GNUCASH" GUY! Now, in a perfect world, yes, GNUCash and literally ANYTHING other than Quickbooks would be an option for small business accounting. But we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where Intuit has fought VERY hard to make damn sure no one can use anything but Quickbooks, and their iron fist is clad in very specific APIs and file formats. If you do not use Quickbooks: * Your bank will hate you. * Your investors will hate you. * Your payroll system won't work. * Your tax systems won't work. * Your accountant won't work. * Grants are even off the table in some cases. * Some places won't audit without Quickbooks. I constantly run into well intentioned open source zealots who demand the use of GNUCash. This is terrible. Don't be that person. The world has chosen QuickBooks. This choice was made under duress and with corrupt power brokering. But the decision has been made. Maybe there are some OK SaaS options, but they only exist as long as Intuit allows them to exist. Anything competing with Quickbooks is going to be bought and killed by Intuit, so you're going into a dead-end alley. I know that leaves GNUCash on the table, but... Please, do not make the mistake my many non-profits and businesses have repeatedly made when I was not paying enough attention to scream bloody murder about it. I turn my back for one minute, and engineers are installing GNUCash on the accountant's Mac Laptop. It's 100% always come back to bite us in the ass, as we've had to change platforms on-demand in order to meet a funding deadline, a bank requirement, a loan ask, or a grant application. And it's ALWAYS the accountant in the org that gets saddled with the 60+ hour work weeks it takes to redo everything. If I was an acocuntant, I'd quit if told to use GNUCash, but most of them kinda don't know any better because, hey, why not try some thing the techies are all excited about! GNUCash is a wonderful project. I wish we could all use it. But we cannot. Not for real business. And honestly, this is only for contrived, arbitrary reasons. But these reasons exist. The world is 100% built to prevent people from not using Quickbooks at every turn, and you only harm yourself by demanding open source software for accounting. As I said to the director of my most recent non-profit: "You would not tolerate the accountant coming in here and demanding you use NetBeans. Please, give them the same courtesy you'd expect them to give you on tool choice."
- warabe 2y agoI kind of surprised to see lots of hatered to GnuCash. What are your usecases? I run cafe business in Japan, but it does everything I need.
- morpheuskafka 2y agoDon't you have to buy some Japan specific software like Freee for the e-Tax integration? I like GnuCash, but for a business, it doesn't automatically handle sales/consumption tax, or employee payroll withholdings, you'd have to manually make splits in every transaction for that. (Actually I think you all don't have to keep your consumption tax received in a separate account bc you net it out against purchases, but in the US we have to journal the tax into sales tax payable liabilities account, not revenue).
- joseda-hg 2y agoCan't speak of Japan, but where I've lived the percentage of tax is calculated against total sales, you don't need it separated beforehand I believe there are some exceptions, with regulated or specially taxed goods like cigarettes, but there was none of those where I worked so it's mostly speculation
- rkaid 2y agoI've used Gnucash for my personal finances for 15-20 years, except for some periods (e.g. a few years where I was unemployed and depressed). It gives me great control of every cent, I know exactly what I've spent where, and I even use it to plan ahead. I use scheduled transactions for all my fixed expenses, and Gnucash enters them 100 days in advance. I manually enter my income, usually also 3 months in advance. My income is very predictable, but can of course vary a little. I then plan out how much to transfer on payday to my debit card account, my bills account, my savings account, etc. I enter any "random" bills (variable or unexpected expenses) as they show up. This allows me to see, in Gnucash, quite exactly how much money I'll have available at any point in time the next 2-3 months. I keep every receipt for things I buy during the week, and every Sunday I have a routine. It's become a bit overkill, but I enjoy it. First I scan the receipts with a scanner app on my phone. Then I sync the scans to my computer using Syncthing. Then I enter each transaction and link it to the scanned receipt. My hierarchy of expense accounts are reasonably detailed, I'd say. I've gone so far as to program useful shortcuts into a numpad, to make this process even easier. So for example, instead of Ctrl-A or whatever is the default for linking a transaction to a file in Gnucash, I have one convenient button on the numpad. Other buttons select different transaction views. For a while I even had a setup where I could RDP to a docker container with Gnucash, so I could use it while at the office. For this I'd also use Syncthing to sync my gnucash data between my desktop and the container. Is it overkill to scan every grocery receipt and whatnot? Yes. Do I need all this historical data? No, not really. But it's somewhat interesting to scroll 3 years back and look at some random dates to see what I bought and what prices were like. It's also useful for tax purposes. And I'm a bit of a data hoarder ;) (I should add that I don't always keep the receipt - I often pay with Google pay and then if it's just food or coffee or something simple like that I just keep the notification until I can enter the transaction in Gnucash.) The biggest thing this setup gives me is great peace of mind. I've struggled with anxiety and depression, and I've lived through times where I've had credit card debt and very little income, so money has been a big stressor at times. Now I have a reasonably well paid job in IT and no debt except student loan, so I could probably live well without Gnucash, but it's still a source of mental well-being, even comfort. I enjoy my weekly routine and micro-managing my money. Sometimes I just open Gnucash to look at how well I'm doing financially (not wealthy by any means, but my net worth is at least in the positive). Gnucash was also great for planning how to pay off my credit cards.
- blackle 2y agoI use GnuCash for the accounting of my hackerspace. It was either this or a site called "wave" which the treasurer of a nearby makerspace recommended. After signing up for wave and playing around, I still wasn't sure. A few weeks later I decided I would use wave, but then I found they had locked my account for no reason. GnuCash it is! It's good software! I eventually wrote code that dynamically links with the libgnucash library so I can auto-generate monthly invoices for the member's dues.
- kreyenborgi 2y agoInteresting, can you share the code?
- blackle 2y agoSure: https://github.com/blackle/GnuCashAutoInvoice/tree/main https://github.com/blackle/GnuCashAutoInvoice/tree/main It's kinda a mess tbh, and it actually also requires some non-exposed symbols to work properly, so it needs access to the GnuCash source code. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you're ok with maintaining your own unsupported GnuCash feature.
- BodyCulture 2y agoCool, thanks for sharing, but is there no better way to automate GnuCash, eg with a Bash or Python script?
- huegrkdnjvmx 2y agoHow come no one mentioned ERPNext. It's open source, can be self hosted, free and biggest growing software in the market. It also scores high on user recommendations. I switched from GnuCash to ERPNext and it has been a blessing.
- INTPenis 2y agoAs a freelance consultant from Sweden I looked at GnuCash several times over the past 10+ years but it was always the same issue. It's not tailored for our economy and our revenue services. Here in Sweden if your revenue is below 3 million SEK/year, then you can use "simplified bookkeeping" (rough translation of "förenklat årsbokslut"). In practice it means I could write a very basic program to manage my expenses and income and just have it generate all the necessary numbers that I then enter manually into our revenue service's online app every year.
- john61 2y agoI am also a solo freelancer with simplified bookkeeping. I experienced that Double-entry bookkeeping is - beyond the initial learning curve - not more effort than simple book keeping. That is because it automatically avoids common errors. GnuCash works fine for me since 20 years. Never looking back to fragile spreadsheets and half-baken Access DB's.
- INTPenis 2y agoHow is the GnuCash DB any different from using an Access DB? For simplified bookkeeping GnuCash, and most generalized bookkeeping programs, is overkill. I accomplish the same thing with 250 lines of Python, and the result is that I get exactly the numbers I need to enter into Skatteverkets e-tjänst, and nothing else. And each transaction is one yaml file, and stored off-site with git.
- john61 2y agoDouble entry bookkeeping is the gold standard in finance bookkeeping since the romans. It is not overkill, because once mastered it is very easy to handle especially with a program that implements the logic like GnuCash. The problem for novices is usually to understand the logic: https://gnucash-docs-rst.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guide/C/ch_basics.html https://gnucash-docs-rst.readthedocs.io/en/latest/guide/C/ch...
- kaliszad 2y agoI wonder does anybody use GnuCash for s.r.o. (LLC/ Ltd.) business in Czechia? How is your experience with it, e.g. do you also do DPH (VAT)?
- skwee357 2y agoGnuCash is really nice, and eventually it would have been my end game, but at some point numbers didn’t end up. Everything was recorded correctly, but reports would show wrong numbers. After migrating from GnuCash to beancount, I realized that some transactions where recorded with invalid currency conversion rates. As someone who relocated recently, manage money in at least 3 currencies, and have an online business, I can’t handle it. I need everything to be explicit in order to avoid mistakes.
- opengears 2y agoplaintextaccounting to the rescue
- _blk 2y agoI've been using GnuCash for a few years now and it's been good. I was looking at other options, but every time I try to book Cryptocurrencies I turn around to GNUCash. Is there another option? Most recently I've tried Odoo (stems out of OpenERP (prev. TinyERP)) which I like because it's python based, has a web interface and runs on docker.
- emilyj30 2y ago[dead]
- emilyj30 2y ago[dead]