GnuCash 2.0.0 Released 282
tashanna writes "After a very welcome GTK2 conversion and some additional feature hacking, GnuCash has released version 2.0.0. Other notable changes include: 'OFX DirectConnect which can directly retrieve and import account statements over the Internet, a "Hide account" feature to keep a better overview of your current accounts tabbed window functionality, the ability to create budgets within GnuCash using your account data, support for Accounting Periods, the data file format has been improved with respect to international characters data files with international characters can be transferred to other countries flawlessly, GnuCash Help and Guide are now fully integrated with the GNOME Help system (Yelp).'"
Any sarge backports available? (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool! (Score:2, Interesting)
Port for MS Windows is possible with GTK2 (Score:5, Interesting)
With GTK1, a port of GNUcash for Windows was only a dream [gnucash.org].
GnuCash is pretty popular in the Linux world. It would be great to see this OSS project available to Windows users as well.
Gnome Office? (Score:4, Interesting)
What about us Brits? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Great for... (Score:2, Interesting)
I see this new version finally has the ability to set budgets. Since the site is still overloaded I don't know exactly what this entails. Can you setup recurring bills as well? If so, GnuCash 2 is probably pretty close to the "good enough for most people" mark.
I would love to replace MS Money with GnuCash (once somebody makes a Windows port). Every so often I'll try out the latest version on my Linux partition to see how it's progressing and each time I've been disappointed (as far as it being a replacement for Money, not the quality of the software itself).
I look forward to checking out GnuCash 2 once the site is available again
Re:what about a QuickBooks replacement? (Score:5, Interesting)
depending on what you're doing, gnucash IS a good replacement for quickbooks. It handles a/p. a/r and a reasonable slew of business reports. It does NOT do payroll, which may be a killer for a lot of people, but in my experience, quickbooks payroll wasn't all that. Once you've built a decent spreadsheet for doing payroll, you can format it into a
Re:GNUcash (Score:3, Interesting)
In the days of cash and checkbooks, I could see it. But in these days of debit cards, credit card, and automated bill payments, a fairly detailed itemized statement is prepared for you automatically. I suppose there is some margial benefit in manually duplicating all those database updates yourself, but I wager the time you spend hunting down your data entry mistakes will more than negate the benefit.
Re:kmymoney (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a command-line program that implements double-entry accounting, without the clunky GUI/WIMPy frills.
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:1, Interesting)
Am I missing something here? Did my parents just hate me? Maybe they just didn't like the results after they payed for my sister's education, and her masters degree, in Theater.
I don't mean to be insulting, I just really don't understand the often-expressed obligation that many parents feel to fund their children's education. I don't object to the idea of helping your child finance school, or maybe even absorbing some of the costs directly as your circumstances allow, but I cannot get a handle on this "we must pay for Johnny's education" mindset, and the resulting pressure to save thousands of dollars to meet that obligation. Why can't Johnny learn about opportunity costs and take actions to ensure that the investment he made in his education pays off?
Re:Any sarge backports available? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd love to see GnuCash get to a point where real life accountants used it, or maybe if it could just output to a QuickBooks format or something... is there a standard in the accounting world? I have no idea. I'm just rambling the "killer" features that I'd love to see so I could use the program which I prefer anyway.
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok you have one account. Into which everything is deposited. With a debit card. So it sounds like you have a checking account. How much interest do you earn on that?
You spend less than you have. Great! But you have a 50% margin, which you could definately keep at a higher interest. Oh wait, no you can't because you only have one account.
Then, you don't believe in credit cards and online banking, but you do automatic withdrawals? IE you allow your utilities to take whatever they want from your account? Nice...
Here's a better system.
I have a checking account, a high-yield online money market, and a credit card. Everything that I spend during the month goes on the credit card, including utilities (cell, landline, DSL, etc.) My paycheck gets direct deposited into the checking account at the beginning of the month. My credit card is due on the 15h. That means:
In the beginning of the month, I have my credit card statement. I schedule a transfer from the checking account into the credit card. I pay whatever other things I need to pay, by check. The balance of the checking account (minus a few hundred bucks) goes into the high yield savings.
What's the benefit of this system?
1. Since intra-month spending goes on a credit card, I don't have to worry about leaving enough cash in the low-interest checking account.
2. Establishes good credit history. I have had a credit card for years, never missed a payment (and never paid it off in anything less than full). You?
3. It makes me money. In two ways: First, I earn higher interest on the balance of my savings, and second, my credit card pays me 1.25% back on everything I spend. So if I spend $1,000 a month (including all utilities, not unreasonable), I get 12 bucks back.
There's a few other things that my systems kicks ass about. But really, it doesn't take more effort than yours (infact it takes less, I don't have to keep phoning my bank to check my balance), it avoids worrying about overdrafting (the credit card limit is high enough), it allows my money to earn higher interest, it allows me to get cash back on my purchases, etc.
I like it better!
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:3, Interesting)
You have no retirement or other investments? No money market accounts? No savings accounts? Nothing which pays any interest? Why not? Are you married? Do you trust your wife or girlfriend? No kids with bank accounts to keep track of?
Mandating having only one bank account is taking a woefully simplistic approach to finances.
2. No credit cards (they are EVIL)
Credit cards are not evil. Interest rates on credit cards are evil. As long as you pay on time and don't charge more than you can afford (yes, it IS possible to do this while maintaining one or more credit cards in good standing and not paying a dime of interest), you will have no problems.
Last year I charged $5000 worth of home improvment supplies to my credit card in one fell swoop. They gave me 12 months no interest to pay it off. So I took the $5000 I would have spent on paying it off the next month, and stuck it into a 12 month CD (a poor investment, but fairly safe). A couple weeks before I was about to get socked for several hundred dollars in back interest PLUS the balance owed, I cashed in the CD and kept the additional money it had earned, and paid off the card.
No interest paid, and someone ELSE carried the debt for a year while I used the money to sit in an account and earn interest.
Credit cards are not bad. You just need to know how to use them responsibly.
Re:GNUcash (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:3, Interesting)
A problem with modern eduction is that it has become very expensive. My first two years of school were at 18,000 a year, at what was called a good bang-for-buck school. I'm still paying off roughly 10k in loans from there. Had my parent's decided to pay for my college, I would have done all four years there, as it was loans finally got the best of me. Sure, anyone can get the loans, but do you really want (you or your kid) to have to be paying them off for the next ten to twenty years?
If you want your kids to succeed, they pretty much need to have a good education, and as might not be able to afford it without a loan, you have the option of helping.
Re:GNUcash (Score:2, Interesting)
Porting (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if these things start to be able to hold a candle to MS Money, there are lots of people (like me) who have years and years worth of data in Microsoft or Quicken. Unless we can port the data, we probably won't really give these things a proper try.
I would imagine that this is HARD to do. At least based on the fact that Quicken tried to make a program to make the porting easier but it sucked (it failed to match up transactions properly - ie that the -500 that left my checking account is the same +500 that arrived in my brokerage)
In my opinion, most people who would use these tools, are the kind of people who were using Quicken or MSM before GnuCash came along. To get us to switch, we need to be able to port our data in a simple and robust way.
just a thoight...
Bank of America web crap (Score:2, Interesting)