fund accounting and friends revisited

[Wm...]

Let's take a few situations.

Fred and Mary co-habit, they each maintain their own beancount file,
once a month they get together and figure out who owes who how much. The
sensible way to do this would be for them to merge their beancount files
together, unfortunately they can't do that.

Fred also runs a charitable organisation. He is, quite rightly,
concerned about the correct accounting and use of restricted funds so he
creates a beancount file for the Children's fund, the Food project and
so on. The trustees ask him to produce an overview of the non-profit's
accounts. He has to use a spreadsheet, I think.

Mary is a company director with responsibility for a number of discreet
cost centres, each of them can be managed in a beancount file but it is
a pain in the bum to pull them all together when the board asks for an
overview. Spreadsheet time again.

The problem to me, as an observer, is that beancount only knows of

Assets
Liabilities
Income
Expenses
Equity

and refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything else.

However, it seems that Trading accounts c.f. GnuCash are being
considered. Where they belong in a balance sheet is a view rather than
a right or wrong. If I consistently profit from my currency
transactions I'd want that under Income but if I was losing because my
currency was crap vs the rest of the world I'd put it under Expenses. Or
maybe it is all a shift in Equity ? The point is that beancount
shouldn't decide for the user that only 5 classes may exist or if it
does it should allow inclusion within those classes of transactions that
may not seem obvious.

both ledger-cli and hledger have (if I read correctly) ways to solve
this not very challenging conundrum but not beancount.

I think this is because Martin doesn't want another conceptual amount of
money. This isn't a personal attack, Martin has often displayed
flexibility in solving other people's problems, I'm thinking he may be
stuck on self-imposed accounting principles that don't reflect the real
world.

Most of the thought problems can be solved by an include mechanism or,
since we are dealing with plain text files, just cat-ing relevant files
together and wondering why they don't produce the numbers expected.

Are Mary's cost centres an Asset, Liability, Income, Expense or Equity?
Aren't some of them Income, others Expenses and some a Liability?

Is Mrs Jones running the Children's fund doing a bad thing for the
non-profit overall by spending over budget on a project that the
trustees agreed on? How will we know if beancount can't consolidate ?

P.S. I have read Martin's doc regarding Fund Accounting and my
conclusion is he thought around the problem rather than about it.

--
Wm...

[n14...@gmail.com]

I have also asked about Martin about this in the past. 2 of my conclusions (correct me if wrong):

- beancount is for tracking your point of view of the money. You = 1 person. You cannot keep parallel accounting for two persons (each one with their own A,L,E,I,X). E.g. you cannot say „Mary had $100, then she spent $50 to pay Fred, and with that income in his assets, Fred bought an ice cream.“

- A,L,E,I,X may seem a limitation but in practice, most/all countable things can be seen as one of those. It took me a bit of learning, but now I don't need more account types. While learning I had to do little hacks like use different currencies (like „a fiscal Euro“), or create many equity accounts and move value among them (this doesn't change your worth).

The only things that don't enter into ALEIX are the crazy things like „in this $5 you earnt, please set your limit for whatever tax at L=500“. What is that 500? An asset? A liability? It's just a random number you have to record, it doesn't accumulate in your account. Better to write it as a note or a comment.

At the moment my limitations with beancount are others, not the lack of more than 5 account types.

You also mention this case: you earn +$1 +$2 -$0.5. Is that a -$0.5 income or a $0.5 expense? I would say: a -$0.5 income. You want it grouped together with the other incomes.
By the way, it's not the same „earn $10, then earn -$2“ and „earn $10, then spend $2“. The first one reflects something like a typo correction (your payer wanted to pay you $8 but paid more and then rectified).

About including one file inside another: that would be great… Maybe a plugin can rename every Assets:X:Y in file1.beancount into an Assets:File1:X:Y which will be mixed with file2. In this way, they mixed but still separable. To make it simmetrical, the old Assets:M:N in file2 would be renamed to Assets:File2:M:N.
That is: infix the file name as a namespace into each account, then concatenate all those transformed files into one big file. if A+L+E+I+X=0 was true in file1, and A'+L'+E'+I'+X'=0 was true in file2, then A+A'+…=0+0 in the combined file; it won't break.


Greetings

[Wm...]

Sat, 13 Dec 2014 06:35:28
<3f72a038-e351-4baf...@googlegroups.com>
n14...@gmail.com wrote...

>
>I have also asked about Martin about this in the past. 2 of my
>conclusions (correct me if wrong):
>
>- beancount is for tracking your point of view of the money. You = 1
>person. You cannot keep parallel accounting for two persons (each one
>with their own A,L,E,I,X). E.g. you cannot say „Mary had $100, then she
>spent $50 to pay Fred, and with that income in his assets, Fred bought
>an ice cream.“

Martin has, however, presented a real example of two people living
together and sharing expenses without seeing a beancount problem use.

Maybe you are right and he simply doesn't conceive of other people.

>- A,L,E,I,X may seem a limitation but in practice, most/all countable
>things can be seen as one of those.

Correct.

> It took me a bit of learning, but
>now I don't need more account types. While learning I had to do little
>hacks like use different currencies (like „a fiscal Euro“), or create
>many equity accounts and move value among them (this doesn't change
>your worth).

True. My argument is not that other money exists but that other money
should be recognised. It is the recognition that I think Martin /
beancount is failing on.

>The only things that don't enter into ALEIX are the crazy things like „in this $5 you earnt, please set your limit for whatever tax at L=500“.
>What is that 500? An asset? A liability? It's just a random number you
>have to record, it doesn't accumulate in your account. Better to write
>it as a note or a comment.

Heh, I like you. Of course we should record money in a realistic way
for ourselves *and* record it in a way our governments expect.

>At the moment my limitations with beancount are others, not the lack of
>more than 5 account types.

I nod, my problem is actually Martin's lack of thinking, he doesn't seem
to want to allow recording of non-personal stuff.

>You also mention this case: you earn +$1 +$2 -$0.5. Is that a -$0.5
>income or a $0.5 expense? I would say: a -$0.5 income. You want it
>grouped together with the other incomes.

I'd agree, it is an offset against income rather than an expense.

>By the way, it's not the same „earn $10, then earn -$2“ and „earn $10,
>then spend $2“. The first one reflects something like a typo correction
>(your payer wanted to pay you $8 but paid more and then rectified).

>About including one file inside another: that would be great…

I think hledger already allows that so the idea isn't new

> Maybe a
>plugin can rename every Assets:X:Y in file1.beancount into an
>Assets:File1:X:Y which will be mixed with file2. In this way, they
>mixed but still separable. To make it simmetrical, the old Assets:M:N
>in file2 would be renamed to Assets:File2:M:N.
>That is: infix the file name as a namespace into each account, then
>concatenate all those transformed files into one big file. if
>A+L+E+I+X=0 was true in file1, and A'+L'+E'+I'+X'=0 was true in file2,
>then A+A'+…=0+0 in the combined file; it won't break.

I think that is overcomplicating things but, I must say, it made me
smile because it is a cute view and includes Martin's mantra of a plugin
to solve whatever any perceived problem is. Clever :)

A much more ordinary view is that a subsidiary file has a place in a
balance sheet.

--
Wm...

[Martin Blais]

Wm,

Your emails consistently have been a series of factually incorrect statements, failed attempts at understanding what I aim to do despite me having explained it to you several times, and its spirit and intent being documented profusely, and unprovoked ad-hominem blabber. In internet parlance, you are acting like what's called a "Troll" and it has become difficult to take you seriously. If not for this, this morning I'd spend my rarefied time to answer your already-answered questions but I know from past experience you're just going to rebutt without even reading what I'll explain so I'd be wasting minutes I could be coding instead. I haven't seen you contribute anything constructive yet, neither on the Ledger list nor on this one.

Please go use some other software. I give mine away for free; I really don't care if you don't use it. I think you deserve better. You do deserve something that guides you by the hand--this is not it. If you don't like to have to label accounts in categories, please go use Ledger, I already make good use of those labels to produce balance sheets, these labels provide nice guarantees and they are here to stay (and by the way, have nothing to do with Trading Accounts). If you don't like to use signed quantities, go use GnuCash, signed quantities have clearly helped Ledger (and Beancount) make something simple of something that wasn't. If you don't even like that, find your own way, or better: write your own software. The nature of creation often begins with a disagreement. If you think you can do better: stop complaining and please go do it now.

But by all means... be merry. If one day you really do have a question that you genuinely want answered, come back and try to frame it in a constructive and polite way, and when someone answers you, try to understand what they meant with their answer and build upon that, even if you still disagree. You might just learn something new. I would definitely answer one like that.

Good luck,

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 11:21 AM, Wm... <tcn...@tarrcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:

Sat, 13 Dec 2014 06:35:28 <3f72a038-e351-4baf-93de-c2432e...@googlegroups.com>

--
Wm...

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[Wm...]

Sat, 13 Dec 2014 12:55:23
<CAK21+hP=xMdYhQFEvvLi1NMNcNRib...@mail.gmail.com>
Martin Blais <bl...@furius.ca> wrote...

>Your emails consistently have been a series of factually incorrect
>statements,

OK, you know that isn't true but it is a good bold statement.

>failed attempts at understanding what I aim to do

Yup, I am failing to understand, in my world you explain rather than
blame

>despite me
>having explained it to you several times,

You start fibbing there

> and its spirit and intent being
>documented profusely, and unprovoked ad-hominem blabber.

Hmmmn

> In internet
>parlance, you are acting like what's called a "Troll" and it has become
>difficult to take you seriously.

Nope, you've perceived an attack when there isn't one.

> If not for this, this morning I'd spend my
>rarefied time to answer your already-answered questions

which you haven't and someone else wanted the answers too

>but I know from
>past experience you're just going to rebutt without even reading what I'll
>explain so I'd be wasting minutes I could be coding instead. I haven't seen
>you contribute anything constructive yet, neither on the Ledger list nor on
>this one.

I consider the Ledger-CLI / GnuCash / hledger and beancount and similar
projects as one.

>Please go use some other software. I give mine away for free; I really
>don't care if you don't use it.

I do once a month or so

>I think you deserve better. You do deserve
>something that guides you by the hand--this is not it. If you don't like to
>have to label accounts in categories, please go use Ledger, I already make
>good use of those labels to produce balance sheets, these labels provide
>nice guarantees and they are here to stay (and by the way, have nothing to
>do with Trading Accounts).

I think you've taken your rant too far and are now embarrassing
yourself, M

>If you don't like to use signed quantities, go
>use GnuCash, signed quantities have clearly helped Ledger (and Beancount)
>make something simple of something that wasn't.

I use both, is offering a choice (which GnuCash does) bad ?

> If you don't even like
>that, find your own way, or better: write your own software. The nature of
>creation often begins with a disagreement. If you think you can do better:
>stop complaining and please go do it now.

M, I knew you were sensitive but, wow!

>But by all means... be merry. If one day you really do have a question that
>you genuinely want answered, come back and try to frame it in a
>constructive and polite way, and when someone answers you, try to
>understand what they meant with their answer and build upon that, even if
>you still disagree. You might just learn something new. I would definitely
>answer one like that.

Do you think it is possible I am heterosexual and have first language
English that might be the problem here?

Martin, I really don't get you.

--
Wm...