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).'"
Cool! (Score:2)
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Informative)
http://lynema.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Scree nshot-gnucase2%20-%20Unspecified.png [lynema.com]
http://lynema.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Scree nshot-gnucase2%20-%20Register.png [lynema.com]
http://lynema.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Scree nshot-gnucase2%20-%20Gas.png [lynema.com]
http://lynema.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/06/Scree nshot-gnucase2%20-%20Expense%20Accounts.png [lynema.com]
Great for... (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, and has TFA [gnucash.org] been
Re:Great for... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
Re:Great for... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
If so, it's a lame one.
Re:Great for... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of, and all of the best, 'Linux software' is available on Win32. Ports are made much more likely by open sourced code. So I think you made a bad assumption there
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
You can calculate all of the money you saved compared to buying Quicken!
Re:Great for... (Score:3, Insightful)
which, with rapid sunsetting, subscription features and more, is not an insignificant amount.
Re:Great for... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
Re:Great for... (Score:5, Informative)
Try and call up Quicken and ask them why...both as a financial institution and as a customer. You will get all sorts of laughable excuses like ".QFX makes the files you get from your bank more secure", or "we don't use OFX because it isn't secure". As if their additions to the file makes it secure (it doesn't, not even from a integrity standpoint because every customer gets the same, or similiar tags).
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 t
Re:Great for... (Score:3, Informative)
Scheduled/recurring transactions: yes (since 1.8)
No, it doesn't have the polish of Commercial Software, but it's improving.
Re:Great for... (Score:5, Informative)
GnuCash is NOT available for Windows yet. It may be available in the future, or it may be possible to compile your own.
According to the wiki: "FAQ: Is it possible to compile GnuCash on Windows? A: Currently, no".
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
If she runs Cygwin, and X, I should be able to forward the GNUCash session, right? Can anyone comment (in a technical, helpful way) on the relative crack-smokingness of this idea?
Microsoft Services for Uniux doesn't really offer much for this scenario, does it?
Re:Great for... (Score:2)
Re:Great for... (Score:3, Informative)
-OZ
Re:Great for... (Score:4, Informative)
Not only is it possible to use GnuCash on Windows using Cygwin's X Server. That's how I've been doing it for some time now with very good results. The only problem I've ever had is with default window sizes for non-maximized windows--probably from having a much larger screen resolution on the Windows system than the Linux system that gets X forwarded.
As far as I'm concerned GnuCash is one of the big reasons I've managed to avoid bankruptcy in the past. It's standard approach to accounting and reports was very helpful for me when I got into financial trouble in the past. Seeing this announcement for 2.0 is heartening, and a good reminder that it's time to donate to the developers' beer fund (or whatever they spend donations on).
Any sarge backports available? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Any sarge backports available? (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if you are a non-accountant, you really should take a course in accounting fundamentals. After I did that, GnuCash makes much more sense to me (now that I understand basics in accounting).
Any software app is just a tool. You really need to understand what the tool is doing. If this is too much trouble, then you should go a
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 j
Re:Any sarge backports available? (Score:2)
Re:Any sarge backports available? (Score:2)
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.
GNUcash (Score:4, Informative)
GnuCash is an application to keep track of your finances. GnuCash is a personal finance manager. A check-book like register GUI allows you to enter and track bank accounts, stocks, income and even currency trades. The interface is designed to be simple and easy to use, but is backed with double-entry accounting principles to ensure balanced books.
That's from yum, although 2.0.0 isn't in the fedora repositories yet (well, not; livna, core, extras or updates)
Re:GNUcash (Score:5, Insightful)
Dentist Expenses:Health $200.00
You have,
Dentist Expenses:Health $200.00
Liabilities:Visa $200.00
Or even better,
Dentist Expenses:Health $200.00
Expenses:Taxes $15.00
Liabilities:Visa $180.00
Assets:Cash $35.00
Then when your Visa comes in, you reconcile your transactions. This is much, much better than a checkbook register or other back of the napkin accounting methods. The point is that ALL transactions are balanced. Money in = Money out.
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:GNUcash (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GNUcash (Score:3, Informative)
I enter things manually--you should too! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not in portage yet (Score:2)
BBH
Gnome Office? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Gnome Office? (Score:2, Informative)
kmymoney (Score:5, Informative)
http://kmymoney2.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
I'll certainly give a try to Gnucash 2.0 anyway.
Re:kmymoney (Score:2)
(seriously.... have the Gnome/KDE guys just stopped trying to be clever with their names?)
Re:kmymoney (Score:2)
Re:kmymoney (Score:3, Interesting)
It's a command-line program that implements double-entry accounting, without the clunky GUI/WIMPy frills.
I have used both; I prefer GnuCash over KMyMoney (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I am a KDE fan and prefer KDE apps on my Kubuntu desktop, I went back to GnuCash because their double-entry accounting system is more rigourous and more powerful. The equivalent in KMyMoney is categories for each transaction, but not only are the categories not well implemented (you have to drill down into the transactions to display the cat
Re:I have used both; I prefer GnuCash over KMyMone (Score:3, Informative)
unfortunately, it won't go into Dapper... it'll be in Edgy. For Dapper, you'll have to request the backport team for it to be put in Dapper backports or else some kind soul will package it and make it available on an unsupported repository.
that's how I've got the most recent KMyMoney, someone has packaged it and stuck it on their own repository.
And you thought physicists were boring (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Only one bank account (with a debit card) into which everything I make is direct deposited
2. No credit cards (they are EVIL)
3. Mentally remember how much you generally have in the account ($9786, OK, so I've got about $10,000 in the bank)
4. Confirm what you mentally think you have with your bank's automated phone system so that you have a fresh guess as to how much you've got
5. Never spend more than %50 of what you think you have in the account unless you have a REALLY GOOD reason
6. DO NOT bank online. Evar
7. Memorize the general amounts of your monthly charges, which should all be automatic withdrawals. ($54.99 for cable? OK so assume $60 a month)
In general it's all based on assumptions with a mental attitude that you have less than you actually do. So far it's worked wonders for my money situation in that I really don't have to think about it unless it matters at the moment. Because if there's one thing people like us HATE to do, it's thinking about money. Money is a nuisance in every way just as non-techs feel computers are a nuisance in every way. For those of you that have a strong interest in money, well... get help.
No online banking? Why not? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh... why not? I've been banking online for years and never once had a single incidence of fraud. Of course, I switched to running Linux full-time a year or so ago, but even when I was running WinXP I had no problems. Of course, I also somehow avoided getting spyware or viruses, too (probably due to the fact that I was a devotee of Mozilla/Firefox). It's surprising to me to hear this kind of attitude on Slashdot, since most people here are clueful enough about security to know how to avoid getting burned.
Re:No online banking? Why not? (Score:2)
For me it's just a matter of paranoia and security. As much as I don't care about money or don't like to think about it, I'm not crazy either. I have WiFi access point on my network (A Cisco AP that work gave me). It's secured with WEP. I also use SSH tunnels to and from all the wireless devices on my network. I still don't trust any of it with the sensitive information for banking. I use Firefox on all my boxes si
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Credit cards aren't evil, you just have to know how to use them.
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2, Insightful)
However everyone should keep track of expenses though, even if just for a few months. Once you realize how seemingly small things add up (do you go out to lunch every weekday? do you only pay the minimum on your car/home/college loan?), when you could be savinig for whatever your highe
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
You round your bank balance UP? Are you insane? Always round your expenses up, and your balance down, so you aren't going around thinking you have more money than you actually do. So if you have $9786, you have $9500, not $10,000.
Also, if you actually do have $10,000 in your account, why are you letting it all sit in checking? Unless you have $10,000 in monthly expenses, you should put som
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Of course, the risk is infinitely lower. (But even a cash deposit is a better choice than checking/savings account for collecting interest)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately today, the costs of purchasing such major items necessitate the usage of credit. My mother at 49 is unable to get a loan to fix her house, because she's paid in cash her entire life and has no credit history. She'll just have to save up until she has enough, right?
While I appreciate the simpleness and ease of what you're promoting, fact is unless you are independently wealthy or have no interest in having a family (how are you paying for the kids' college?), you have to have some form of credit.
People like us? Sounds rather elitist...
(By the way, I gave up a career in IT to work with kids, so I'm pretty sure I don't have a strong interest in money.)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Good Lord NO!! Hehehe...no, I don't make enough money to do what I like to do, buy what I like to buy, and travel like I like to do, and also afford kids. I'd have to make in the high 6 figures before I could have enough to please myself AND afford the expenses kids run you. I guess it works for some people...but, not for me.
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 payin
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
I'm close, but, not quite there. I have all direct deposit to one acct. Towards the end of the month, I call my bank's automated line and get a balance...and I pay all my bills online.
But thinking back...I cannot remember the last time I actually got a bank statment, went through the transactions vs. my checkbook (that I now very seldom use) and reconcile the account. I've not tried balancing a check book or bank statment in I'm guessing nearly 6 years or
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2, Funny)
I am a representative of Prince Mojumbiquo Atolulu. He is currently in your country and is having troubles transferring money to buy a palace because identity got h4x0r3d. We trust you so much that we would like you to help us get his money to him. He is currently try to buy a palace for $100,000,000.00 and we would like to give you 10% of that for help us. It will just require j00 to transfer $10,000 to us to cover our costs and then you will have your money shortly.
Please respond quickly
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
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Thanks.
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:3, Informative)
In general, Emigrant has been higher than Emigrant in the past. Now that HSBC is in the picture, they have consistently been at the top of the payoff, with Emigrant catching up quickly.
Either way, much better than your local bank. The first 100k of each account is FDIC insured. Transfers between any of these accounts and your
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
At any rate, yah, I currently have two savings accounts, one with a regular bank and the other with HSBC. I am contemplating closing the regular bank one and just shifting everything to HSBC, since the interest rate is much,much higher.
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
Re:And you thought physicists were boring (Score:2)
Want a Windows Version (Score:3, Funny)
Cash (Score:3, Funny)
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Cash (Score:3, Funny)
Actually their servers cashed out.
the official announcement (Score:5, Informative)
Accounting in Linux Leaps Forward
*/GnuCash 2.0.0 milestone released to public/*
Personal and small business accounting in Linux will be easier and
better after today's release of GnuCash 2.0.0.
This milestone release of the free, open source accounting program
includes generational advances over the last version. GnuCash 2.0.0 is
based on state-of-the-art gtk2 GUI technology. Developers worked hard to
integrate the Gnome Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for a consistent
behaviour and look-and-feel for the whole Desktop.
Major changes in the milestone release 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).
The GnuCash development team said these new features and changes will
make GnuCash easier than ever for newcomers.
GnuCash is the leading free, open source accounting program and the leap
to gtk2 will enable users to be able to enjoy cutting edge functionality
with the freedom of not being locked into proprietory file formats.
*Playing With Others*
As with other leading Linux software that is designed to replace
proprietory programs, GnuCash is a functional replacement for expensive
accounting programs. Like OpenOffice.org and The Gimp, GnuCash is also
programmed to communicate and interact with as many existing programs,
institutions and people as possible.
The GnuCash development team has continued to improve file import
filters, which allow users to import work from old programs like
Microsoft Money and Quicken. GnuCash can load QIF and QFX files, which
are used by both of those programs.
Developers have also continued to incorporate support for online banking
into the program. GnuCash 2.0.0 supports OFX DirectConnect which can
directly retrieve and import account statements over the Internet.
The milestone release is available in 29 languages, including English,
French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, so people from around the world will
have no difficulty operating the program
*Off on the Right Foot*
Users of the GnuCash 2.0.0 will notice a few changes when they start the
program. Improvements have been made on startup speed, scheduled
transactions, currency support and currency quote retrievals.
After they enter the program, users will find a double-ledger account
system, exhaustive report options and account hierarchy tools. Also at
their disposal is a full system of tutorials and documentation.
*Getting GnuCash*
GnuCash 2.0.0 can be downloaded from gnucash.org. It is available as
source code.
To install GnuCash, users will need Gnome 2, guile, slib and g-wrap.
*http://www.gnucash.org *
*http://download.sourceforge.net/gnucash
*
*About the Program*
GnuCash is a free, open source accounting program released under the GNU
General Public License (GPL) and available for GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris
and Mac OSX. It is collaboratively developed by 10 people from over 5
countries.
Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was
in 1998.
Where's KCash? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Where's KCash? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where's KCash? (Score:2)
Re:Where's KCash? (Score:2)
Of course, nothing's stopping a full KDE front-end over the same core ui-independent engine, except many person-years of development that's gone into the current one.
GTK2 (Score:2)
Re:GTK2 (Score:2)
Re:GTK2 (Score:2)
What about us Brits? (Score:4, Interesting)
turbocash (Score:2, Informative)
i have quite a few clients running
http://www.turbocashuk.com/ [turbocashuk.com]
open source, windows (iam suprised this never gets much publicity)
unless of course you want to mess about with horrible unix kludges on windows in which case gnuCash will suit you fine
Re:What about us Brits? (Score:2)
The real answer is that any accounting program will tend to be biased towards the location of
a. the majority of users
b. the majority of developers
c. all of the above.
Odds are pretty good that the US developers don't know anything about accounting practises in the UK.
Re:What about us Brits? (Score:3, Insightful)
In my opinion, an important issue with GnuCash is that development is fairly slow due to a good chunk of the codebase being LISP, which limits the universe of developers that can work on it. Unless they've changed that with this new version (which would be great!). So it seems like the pace of development compared to other open source products of its age is fairly slow.
I'd like to see the reporting and graphing f
Re:What about us Brits? (Score:2)
A very small fraction of the codebase is lisp.
Development is slow. More developers and/or corporate sponsorship would help. All ~7 active
Re:What about us Brits? (Score:2)
Re:What about us Brits? (Score:2)
I've not noticed anything in the application itself that's US biased - certainly not enough to be confusing...
Although it seems that it might be able to calculate taxes for you, if you're a USian; ha
easy install for MacOS X? (Score:2)
Does anyone know if there are binaries published? Gnucash site is down and google was of no help.
Yes, I know it can be built with fink, but even on my macbook that'll probably mean at least 6 hours of compiling, since gnucash has so many dependencies, it's not even funny...a friend says the old 1.x versions had almost 200 dependencies...and it'll be a fairly sizeable waste of disk space to have the entire /sw tree for fink sitting on my drive just for one program. this [caltech.edu] says almost 1.2GB of wasted space.
Re:easy install for MacOS X? (Score:2)
If they were gonna bother to upgrade to gtk2, why not just switch to something like wxWidgets -- go cross platform on Windows, Unix, and OSX with native widgets.
Oh well. And seriously if you're worried about 1.2 gigs these days, you probably don't need GnuCash anyway since you'll never have any expenditures to worry about
Re:easy install for MacOS X? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, you're out of luck on your MacBook for the time being...some of the libraries upon which Gnucash depends do not yet run on OS X/Intel. (see the Wiki entry on OS X installation [gnucash.org]). You may also notice the list of dependencies earlier in the wiki article, which is not short (and is the reason that using fink is the recommended course of action).
Moneydance (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, and yes it is java but the install was quick and painless and it runs quick (for me at least).
Re:Moneydance (Score:2)
There are plenty of good free personal finance apps for Linux without having to buy a licence for a proprietary java application.
I personally use FruityBanking [sf.net], although I'm a little biased since I wrote it. It's modelled on GnuCash, but with a web interface, and written in Python so everyone can play and it's flexible, open, easy to build on and compatible with SQLite, MySQL and PostgreSQL.
How well supported by banks? (Score:2)
I've been using MoneyDance for a while now (www.moneydance.com), and recently the OFX DirectConnect support has stopped working for Bank of America. And, naturally, all they tell me is "we don't support Moneydance" or "we don't support Macs," even though the app is using what should be well-defined, open standards.
So what've been people's experiences with the OFX features of GnuCash, and does anyone have any "magic
Re:How well supported by banks? (Score:2, Insightful)
what about a QuickBooks replacement? (Score:2)
Is there a good OSS solution comparable to quickbooks?
Microsoft looks like a saint or even Jesus compared to Intuit. I hate Intuit.
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:what about a QuickBooks replacement? (Score:4, Informative)
hopeless. That's the only reason I maintain my stupid winxp dualboot setup -- for access to 4 years of business transactions that are forever locked up in quickbooks. bleh.
Not quite hopeless.. here is what I did (Score:2, Informative)
Not hopeless, at my office I used a (windows) program by a company called 'Digital Cows [digitalcows.com]' to export all of my QB data into a 'plays nice with others' format. (I used CSV and imported to mysql, I think it supports xls, but I've never used it). It's not free, I had
Re:what about a QuickBooks replacement? (Score:3, Informative)
Why I'm switching from Microsoft Money (Score:2, Informative)
add no new features, just fix existing bugs.
Then the whole TurboTax 2002/C-Dilla copy protection debacle happened and I swore off Intuit forever.
Last week I purchased Microsoft Money hoping to get something like Quicken. Hoo boy.
In 3 days of usage so far, I've found:
1) Registration is only allowed with a checkbox reading "I agree to let Microsoft
contact me about updates and special offers." There is no way to uncouple bug
fix
Release available at SourceForge (Score:2)
Even though gnucash.org is being crushed by Slashdot, the release is still available at SourceForge [sourceforge.net].
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...
Too much hassle to install (Score:3, Informative)
I attempted to install Gnucash 2.0 on a computer running CentOS 4.3, and after going through 30 minutes of dependency hell to get all the required programs installed so I could compile Gnucash, I finally got a fatal error stating that g-wrap wasn't working properly.
Maybe I'll try again later if someone creates an RPM installer, because I don't have time to mess around with the C compiler and obscure config files.
Re:Support for Solaris (Sparc) (Score:2)
We've taken care to make the code base as portable as possible (and to use -- relatively -- really old dependent libs) so it can compile on as many distros/oses as possible. We'd love to have someone helping get it working on Solaris.
Re:too many libs (Score:3, Informative)
In any case, it's better than before, but you just can't get away from writing desktop software without using other libs to accomplish things like HTML rendering, printing, graphing, xml parsing, &c.
In any case, here's the dependency list from my gentoo install with optional OFX, HBCI support and quotes-fetching turned on; note that most of the packages are standard (zlib, popt) or just "part of gnome" (gtk,