Managing Money With Linux Apps

lisah writes, "As part of a series of special reports this week, Linux.com is reviewing several ways to manage your money using Linux apps. First up is a review of GnuCash 2.0, a personal and small business accounting package. Though it has a bit of a learning curve, the reviewer says the application is 'stable and robust' and an upgrade from previous versions is well worth it for the program's new features and improved online banking support." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

GnuCash 2.0

[TypoNAM]

It has been working out great from the start for me and I find it far more easier to use than commercial software packages like Quicken, Microsoft Money, and QuickBooks. No annoying or lame navigation, straight to the point which what I like about it best, not to mention the free part which helps too.

I have been using GnuCash 2.0 since it came out quite a few months ago and enjoying it since for all my personal finance book keeping needs. :)

GnuCash isn't "Linux"

[SuperBanana]

Managing Money With Linux Apps

That should read "Managing money with a free open source application", since Gnucash runs on Linux, and numerous Unixes- including MacOS X (albeit in a very-poorly-integrated fashion.)

One thing that always bugged me about Gnucash- you have to pull OFX (or whatever) files by hand. Quicken could automatically fetch the latest data from my bank with a button click...

Also, are there any LiveCDs that contain up-to-date versions of Gnucash and associated libraries? On an intel mac, it's almost easier to run a virtual machine just for Gnucash, than spend hours upon hours of compiling with Fink...

Useful information

[Umbral Blot]

According to the tags teabagging is a trap. That's good to know. (Ok, /. time to put away the tags, we now know for certain that your readers are sophmoric. What did you expect?)

Re:GnuCash 2.0

[afidel]

One of those things is not like the others, Quickbooks is a double entry accounting package meant for SMB's to run their books on, not for personal finance (unless your finances are so complex as to rival a midsized company).

Re:GnuCash isn't "Linux"

[Anonymous Coward]

From the Wiki

At present, OFXDirectConnect can be used to download transaction data from credit card and bank accounts. Investment transactions should still be imported from downloaded OFX files (I use ofx.py) via GnuCash's File>Import>Import OFX/QFX... menu option.

Sounds like GnuCash 2 has solved most of the problem.

Re:GnuCash isn't "Linux"

[wuzzeb]

I have used gnucash for over a year now, and as soon as I upgraded to 2.0 I set up automatic banking. It works great, I can download transactions and check balances for my credit cards (discover, citi bank, capital one), and my bank (charles schwab bank). I force gnucash to ask me for a password, but otherwise it is a button click.

The only issue is none of the banks really advertise the URL you need to use and type into gnucash. For example, discover card uses https://ofx.discovercard.com/ [discovercard.com], but good luck finding that on their site anywhere.

And citi bank you need to use
https://secureofx2.bankhost.com/citi/cgi-forte/ofx _rt?servicename=ofx_rt&pagename=ofx%22 [bankhost.com]

I found those by searching on google.

But in any case, gnucash is a great program, in most cases better than the commercial alternatives.

Ask and ye shall receive.

[Anonymous Coward]

NUT diet software
http://www.lafn.org/~av832/ [lafn.org]

ShrinkingMan
http://debain.org/software/shrinkingman/ [debain.org]

Diet Monger Ass Kicker
http://freshmeat.net/projects/dmak/ [freshmeat.net]

Pydance
http://icculus.org/pyddr/ [icculus.org]
(dance dance revolution for Linux with dance pad support)

No you have no excuse to be a fat Linux looser. Soon you will be a regular Linux looser like everybody else, except of course you'd have very fast feet. :-)

Moneydance rocks my stocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I had kept a win98 virtual environment amount for years all due to one program -- Quicken. I grew to hate Intuit with a passion and finally left them for moneydance. It's a great program without any of the annoying issues that have plagued Intuit products lately. It runs on Mac, Win, and Linux. It handles multiple currencies (one of my main requirements), supposedly does online banking and cheque printing (we don't do either of those where I live), does the usual stocks, etc. Nice clean interface. One of the main things I like (that Quicken used to do back in the DOS days when it was an okay program) is show you a nice overview on your main page -- balance on every account, plus NET WORTH. That's the best motivation in the world to have fiscal good health -- having your net worth hit you every single time you open the program. It's all customizable of course.

Give it a whirl, it's worth the modest price. Platform independance for the win.

Another good alternative ...

[BlackPignouf]

would be Grisbi:
It's easy to learn, use & configure.
More info there:
http://www.grisbi.org/index.en.html [grisbi.org] (en)
http://www.grisbi.org/index.es.html [grisbi.org] (es)
http://www.grisbi.org/index.fr.html [grisbi.org] (fr)

And already included in Debian/Ubuntu repos.

Re:keyboard shortcut for switching tabs in 2.0?

[dreamlax]

Have you tried Ctrl+Tab? I don't use GnuCash but Ctrl+Tab is very common for tab-switching in any application. Ctrl+Shift+Tab goes the other way usually, too.

Re:Does it support budgetting?

[cortana]

Budgetting [gnucash.org] was added in 2.0. Since it's a new feature it probably isn't quite as advanced as some would like... yet. But, as always, development is ongoing!

Spreadsheet

[AVryhof]

I use a spreadsheet sort of laid out like a check register with a few extra columns to reconcile with.

I use it on Excel under Crossover, but I assume it can be done with KSpread, OO.o, Gnumeric, Google spreadsheet, or even VisiCalc... as long as it supports some simple formulas.

  |     A       |   B   |    C   |        D        |  E   |     F           |   G
0 | Description | Debit | Credit | Running Balance | Bank | Outstanding     | Paid Out
1 | Deposit     |       |   300  |       =(C1)     |      |                 |
2 | GAS         |    30 |        | =(D1 - B2 + C2) |      | =if(E2="X",0,B2)| =if(E2="X",B2,0)

So now you just paste your formulas down the columns .. then all you have to do is fill in your transactions.

When they show up on your bank statement, or in your electronic banking, put an X in column E, and the Outstanding value moves to Column G.

Who needs specialty accounting software when one of the oldest apps around can do it just fine?

Re:keyboard shortcut for switching tabs in 2.0?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually, GTK Aaplications use crtl-pgup and ctrl-pgdn to switch between tabs. Some widgets use this shortcut for something else, though. In Gnucash's case the treeview uses it to scroll without changing the currently selected entry. For that reason, there is a general shortcut that should always work: ctrl-alt-pgup and ctrl-alt-pgdn.

Re:GnuCash 2.0

[Serpent Mage]

GnuCash has double entry ledger accounting. It is just defaulting to single entry since only accountants and businesses typically need double entry.

Re:GnuCash 2.0

[Haeleth]

Now that Gnucash is written in GTK2, however, I expect a Windows port?

There are some free-as-in-RMS alternatives that run fine in Windows.

I started out running GnuCash on Linux, but now that I spend most of my time in Windows I've switched to jGnash [sourceforge.net], a Java-based package that's based on the same principles. It's not as robust or feature-complete as GnuCash, but it does what I need, and it's far less of a pain than fiddling with X11.

Another alternative - Buddi

[Anonymous Coward]

Buddi (http://buddi.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]) is another free GPL budgeting program which I made to help budgeting. It is very simple and does not include a bunch of unused features; however, what it does it does well. It is written in Java 1.5. As of this past week, it is expandable via a plugin architecture, and there are a number of people currently working on plugins for it. If you want a simple budgeting program which does not require an accounting degree to use, this is for you.

There was recently a review of it at Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2006/11 /5/5866 [arstechnica.com]).

Cheers
--Wyatt

Re:OO Calc or Excel

[Noksagt]

Money-management software differs from spreadsheets in many respects:

• No row/column limits (meant to be a database that has been customized for finance)
• Automatic management of currency and commodities (GnuCash even lets you download conversions as a cronjob)
• All accounts are already "linked" (updating one updates others)
• Auto or manual import of standard financial data
• Customized reporting/graphing
• More intelligent auto-completion of transactions
• Check printing
• Wizards/Druids for budgeting, mortgages, etc.

While you can get some of this in spreadsheets (with varying amounts of work), some of these are so impractical as to be infeasible in spreadsheets.

FAQ on F/OSS Finace

[Noksagt]

The FW Finance faq: Free and Open Source Finance Applications [fatwallet.com] at fatwallet lists other F/OSS applications, as well as a lot of useful links. The favorite of the FAQ is GnuCash & there are links on how to run it in Windows and OS X.

Learning curve?

[siwelwerd]

How do they argue that Gnucash has a "bit of a learning curve"? I picked it up a couple months ago, and in maybe 15 minutes had figured it out. It truly is a wonderful app for personal finances.

Re:Online data downloading.

[ubuwalker31]

Bank of America allows you to download .qif files for the past 9 months....

Re:Online data downloading.

[Noksagt]

But in the U.S., I think only Quicken and MS Money will do it.

You've heard wrong. Gnucash and QBankManager support OFX direct connect throgh AqBanking (I'd imagine that MoneyDance and KMyMoney probably support it too by now too, but don't use them). The only trick, as another poster pointed out, was finding the URL for your banking institution. MS Money and Intuit Quicken have large databases of such things (and even have agreements with banks to not disclose the URL to any other third parties or get kickbacks from some banks for referrals). This connection information has been extracted from the commercial software and/or "discovered" for many institutions & you can find it on the web. So direct connect will work, but the setup may take a bit of work.

Misunderstanding.

[camperdave]

Gnucash does NOT default to single entry. That would require a major redesign of the entire package, as well as being a monumentally stupid step to take. It would basically eliminate Gnucash from being taken the least bit seriously in the accounting world.

Double Entry basically means that when an amount is entered in one account, a corresponding amount is entered in another account. In the manual, paper based accounting days, it literally meant that the bookkeeper make two entries in the ledger - one in the source account, and one in the destination account. As you can imagine, this would be a major source of errors. In all computer based double entry accounting systems the bookkeeper will only enter the number once, and will choose the source and destination accounts. The computer would take care of making the actual entries in both accounts - eliminating one source of errors.

So, do not be confused. Gnucash is doing double entry accounting: always has been, always will be.

Perhaps you're thinking of a single line leger (where all the transaction information is on one line) vs. a multi line leger (where the transaction information is spread across multiple lines). That is merely a style choice.

Re:GnuCash 2.0

[Procyon101]

The GnuCash help system has a pretty comprehensive yet easy to follow tutorial on it. I learned quite a bit from there.

Re:Moneydance rocks my stocks

[cbciv]

One of the main things I like (that Quicken used to do back in the DOS days when it was an okay program) is show you a nice overview on your main page -- balance on every account, plus NET WORTH.

FYI, it still does this, at least as of version 2005 (Deluxe).

Budget on MacOSX-

[amulder]

Couldn't get into GnuCash.
Didn't like Quicken.
I looked at moneydance 2-3 years ago, and it also was lacking.

None of these support the "envelope" method of budgeting, which IMHO, is the best way to manage your home finances.

Fortunately I found "Budget" from http://www.snowmintcs.com/ [snowmintcs.com] which works great on MacOSX.

Re:Moneydance rocks my stocks

[swillden]

Why use Moneydance over free as in beer Money or Quicken?

1. Money doesn't run on anything but Windows
2. Quicken doesn't run well on anything but Windows (the Mac version is woefully lacking in features)
3. I use OS X and Linux.

In addition, Moneydance is a great little company as well as a nice app. Support is excellent and the developers are friendly and helpful. At this point, Gnucash may be a reasonable alternative, but when I moved away from Quicken three years ago, Gnucash wasn't really an option. At this point, neither Moneydance nor Gnucash give me any reason to change.

Re:Very interesting.

[Noksagt]

I wonder whether the URL could be sniffed in some way, by monitoring what Quicken does. I assume that the connection itself is encrypted, but I'm not sure if that includes encrypting the URL as the file is requested or not...

I'd imagine you'd be able to sniff some of these URLs. If not, I'd be a bit concerned--it could mean that Intuit has a machine acting as an intermediary & could therefore have access to my data. But getting this out of money is easy [jongsma.org].

I was under the impression that the Quicken protocol was proprietary from end to end, and that it was something more complicated than an HTTP download of a QIF file.

OFX [wikipedia.org], which is currently used, is actually documented and agreed on by MS, Intuit, and CheckFree.

Do the GNUCash people maintain their own database of bank's OFX URLs?

Not formally, so far as I know. Some have been announced to the list & their are user sites that have this information. I don't know whether there would be an issue disclosing these (depending on how they were discovered). Jeremy's site is the best way to get them that I know of.