At the end of 2022, I discovered this software that I've been using all year. I'd like to hear your thoughts or experiences with GnuCash, or whatever system/program you use to track your personal finances!
For the ones unfamiliar, it's based on a double-entry accounting system; every transaction always has at least two accounts involved. Example: if I spend 200 SEK on a restaurant, it goes from Assets:Cash to Expenses:Food.
Starting by creating my own accounts, it helped me immensely to have an overview of my general financial situation.
Around March, I found enlightening to re-define what expenses needed their own category from what I was unconsciously lumping into 'others'. Having it all already logged, made it quite easy . The caveat is that all the entries are manual, but my finances are not as complex, so with 30-45 minutes a week I have it updated.
You can even create diagrams for your monthly expenses, or general balance, among other reports that come quite handy if you want to run a query.
I've tried several times times but found it difficult to integrate with actual accounts like Mint and today simply use a spreadsheet in LibreOffice updated weekly to track debts (this includes CCs so spending is in there, too)
I'm the same way. I want to use GNUCash, but I have a bunch of accounts and haven't found a good way to import them. So I stopped using it after trying for about a month.
Been using gnucash for ≈7 years and havent found anything better. It has its quirks but once you get used to it its pretty straightforward and easy for the basics
I just wish reports were more customizable/ easier to create custom ones without learning a language i've never heard of before
The learning curve wasn't as steep as I initially thought. For my basic transactions, that is; I haven't figured out how to deal with stocks though.
Totally agree with the customization. I only toyed around with the options given, but didn't know you could change them programatically! Is it a language solely for GnuCash?
Stocks and shares and investments docs are here, but let me know if you get stuck and ill try and help out as I also track stocks
I dont know, about the language. Its written in Scheme and Guile. Id never heard of them until Gnucash. That said the built in reports and options are enough for what i want. A multiplot custom chart option would be useful but i just export to spreadsheet at that point and plot there
Been using it for years. It's the only double entry system I've found that I like.
As others have noted, the reports kind of suck, however, the one feature I love is the tax report functionality.
Tag any number of accounts as tax related, and then, at least for the US, the tax form and line/box number, and you can run the tax report that will, hopefully, give you a report for the selected period with stuff like "Form 1040 Box 32: $32,839.09" etc.
I've tried it many times, but every time I just end up hating it. I'm probably biased by the fact that I'm a DEVELOPER of accounting software, and I'm too used to how our accounting is done in our own ecosystem.
Charts in Ynab4 were fairly sophisticated. For example, I could easily drill down into categories on monthly income/expenses. They also looked great since the devs put a lot of thought into the UX.
I switched to Moneydance after nYnab came out and Ynab4 was killed off. I'm not an adherent to Ynab's budgeting philosophy and I didn't see the worth in the monthly fee.
Like Ynab4, Moneydance is a standalone product. It's manual accounting, which I don't mind. It's quick to enter transactions, has a nice summary view, and can backup to separate locations. When I decide to migrate, I can export my data to QIF or other formats.
Used for many years, gave up because I dont have time to update manually or import files from banking and correct all the incorrect data. Reports are kind of dissapointing too.
Now I use wallet by budgetbakers and hope they dont sell my financial data... Or get hacked. Or both.