Community Notebook Free Software Projects Projects on the Move Are you ready to assess your assets and limit your liabilities? Or maybe you just want to find out where your money goes. This month we look at Grisbi, GnuCash, and
HomeBank finance managers. By Rikki Endsley
his time, it’s personal. My current system of logging into my bank ac- count to see whether my magical debit card still works isn’t working for me, so I’ve decided to test drive some open source finance managers: T Grisbi, GnuCash, and HomeBank. Grisbi First released in French in 2000, the Grisbi accounting program is now available nobilior, 123RF in several languages and runs on most operating systems. To download Grisbi, visit the project’s SourceForge page [1] or homepage [2]. The install and con- figuration is intuitive – select your country and currency, the list of “categories” you’ll use (either a standard category set or an empty list with no categories defined yet), add bank details, and then create a new account from scratch or import data RIKKI Endsley from an online bank account or accounting software. I opted to create a new bank ac- count. Other options include a cash account, liabilities account, or assets account Rikki Endsley is a freelance writer and the community manager for USENIX. In (Figure 1). addition to Linux Magazine and Linux After you set up your account, a window with transactions and properties opens Pro Magazine, Endsley has been (Figure 2). Here you can enter, view, and reconcile transactions; adjust your bank de- published on Linux.com, NetworkWorld. tails as necessary; or switch between your different accounts. The Schedule option al- com, CMSWire.com, and in Sys Admin lows users to enter regularly scheduled debits, such as car or student loan payments, Magazine and UnixReview.com. or credits into your account. The Categories option helps you visualize where your
Figure 1: Choose which type of account you want to manage. Figure 2: An intuitive start screen helps you get organized quickly.
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money goes tation, but Grisbi is easy and intuitive to (Figure 3). If use, and you can try the forums, mailing you don’t see list, or emailing the developers for help the category or [3]. The project is also looking for con- sub-category tributors and help with the documenta- you need, sim- tion [4]. If you’ve never contributed to ply add it with an open source project before, Grisbi the click of a might be the way to start. The Contrib- button. ute page says, “It’s wrong to think that When you’re you have to be a programmer to partici- ready to visu- pate in a free software project, and every alize your little bit of help is very welcome! (I’m a data, select the perfect example of this, my adventure Reports option started with a simple bug report.)” and then pick which tem- GnuCash plate you GnuCash [5], which is licensed under want: Last the GNU GPL and available for Linux, month in- BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Microsoft comes and Windows, is one of the better-known fi- outgoings, nance managers and is available in sev- Current month eral languages. If English documentation incomes and is important to you, GnuCash has it. In outgoings, An- October 2011, GnuCash 2.4.8 (a “bug fix nual budget, release”) rolled out. Figure 3: Organize your Blank report, I installed GnuCash from the Ubuntu spending into catego- Cheques de- Software Center, but you can also get it ries to see exactly how posit, or from the GnuCash website. After launch- much money you spend Monthly out- ing GnuCash, you’ll have a welcome on gas or dining out goings by page with options to create a new set of each month. payee. Next, accounts, import QIF files, or open the adjust the re- new user tutorial. I dove in to create a port properties (Figure 4). See the proj- new account. In the next window, a New ect homepage for additional, detailed Account Hierarchy Setup assistant will screenshots. help you create accounts for assets, lia- The project’s website is a bit clunky, bilities, and different kinds of income and there isn’t much English documen- and expenses; then, choose your cur- Diana Rich, Fotolia.com
Figure 4: Adjust your report’s data selection and ranges. Figure 5: Choose which accounts you want to create.
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rency and which types of accounts you ation, and more. And, if you run a small want to create (Figure 5). business, you will probably appreciate I started with Assets and saved my features such as invoicing and bill pay- new account so I wouldn’t lose my work ment and customer and vendor tracking. (again). Be sure to add Need to keep an eye on your Microsoft the account balance stock? Be sure to check out the stock and when you set up the mutual fund portfolio options. account, too. This is In the end, I decided that GnuCash the part that started to was not the application for me, but annoy me because I that’s not to say it won’t work for you if couldn’t just click in a you need a powerful accounting system field and add a bal- with lots of options to manage your fi- ance. nances. Instead, I kept get- ting a message saying HomeBank This account register is As I struggled with GnuCash, I sent a read-only and to edit it, tweet out about it. One friend responded I’d need to open the and suggested that I try HomeBank [6]. I account options and asked her how it was possible that I’d turn off the place- never heard of this free program, and holder checkbox. (So she said a friend had recommended it to far, GnuCash isn’t as her after she complained about her diffi- intuitive, so that extra culties with GnuCash. documentation will According to the HomeBank site, de- Figure 6: Regular payments can be scheduled in advance to hit come in handy after velopment on the free software started accounts on selected days. all.) I turned off the back in 1995 on Amiga computers, and placeholder checkbox now it’s available in more than 50 lan- and entered my first guages on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft transactions. Windows, Mac OS X, and Nokia N series Features of GnuCash devices. The latest stable release, 4.4, include the double came out in February 2011. HomeBank is entry system, which released under the GPL license (except means each transac- for the Amiga version, which is freeware tion debits one account but no source code). and credits another to I revisited the Ubuntu Software Center balance the books. to download HomeBank and then Like Grisbi, GnuCash launched the program. First, the wel- has a checkbook-style come screen popped up with three sim- register, but it felt a lot ple options: create a new wallet, open an clunkier to me. (Of existing wallet, or open an example file. course, I am coming I jumped in to create a wallet and en- from no system at all, tered my name as the owner in the Wal- so GnuCash might be let Properties window. In the Create an perfect for someone account screen, I named my account Figure 7: HomeBank has fewer bells and whistles than GnuCash, used to a feature-rich Checking and then selected Bank as the but more than enough features for my needs. accounting system.) type of account. Other options are cash, The Scheduled Transactions option is asset, credit card, or liability (Figure 7). I Info great for those regular payments, such as never needed to read the documentation, car insurance or the cable bill. After you which says a lot about how easy this [1] Grisbi on SourceForge: enter the transaction, click on the calen- program is to use. http://sourceforge. net/ projects/ grisbi dar symbol in the menu bar, which The toolbar options were much more [2] Grisbi homepage: opens a screen for scheduling daily, intuitive than GnuCash, too, with but- http://www. grisbi. org/ weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, or tons to configure the accounts, payees, [3] Grisbi help: http://www.grisbi.org/ annual payments (Figure 6). categories, automatic assignments, ar- manuel.en. html If you like reports and graphs, Gnu- chives, or budget; to add transactions; [4] Contribute to Grisbi: http://www. Cash might be for you. GnuCash can and to open the statistics, trend time, grisbi.org/ contribute. en. html kick out your data in barcharts, pie balance, budget, and car cost reports. [5] GnuCash: http://www. gnucash. org charts, scatter plots, balance sheets, Entering a transaction is so simple! [6] HomeBank: http://homebank. free. fr/ profit and loss statements, portfolio valu- After clicking on the Add transaction
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Figure 8: Entering a transaction is intuitive and includes options for tags and categories.
button, you simply enter the date and If you’re looking for a free, open amount, click the plus or minus symbol source way to balance your budget, you next to the amount to indicate money have plenty of options to coming in or being spent, enter the fit your needs, and you payee, select the category and payment might want to try a few type, and then add a description, info, or before settling on one. tags if you like. Then, you can simply Each of the programs I pick which account you want to use for tried would do the job that transaction (I just have a checking for me, but only one account so far) and then click Add (Fig- stood out as the best fit ure 8). for my needs and per- At this point, I already know that I’ve sonal taste. Now I just found my new accounting system. I have to make myself sit might even start making pie charts on a at my computer long regular basis so I can better visualize enough to enter the de- where my money goes (Figure 9). Check tails into HomeBank; out the HomeBank website for the docu- then I’ll have a simple mentation and more screenshots of re- solution for following Figure 9: The statistics options is a great way to “show me ports and graphs. my cash flow. nnn the money.” Expert Touch Linux professionals stay productive at the Bash command line – and you can too. The Linux Shell special edition provides hands- on, how-to discussions of more than 300 command-line utilities for networking, troubleshooting, configuring, and managing Linux systems. Let this comprehensive reference be your guide for building a deeper understanding of the Linux shell environment.
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