Record-keeping
Nov. 25th, 2005 11:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowI'm a little bit obsessive about keeping good personal financial records. (Only a little, as shall be seen; laziness can trump it, sometimes.) The problem is, the kinds of details I want aren't available (as far as I can tell) in the commercially available financial packages, and on the other hand those packages usually contain a lot of details I have no interest in tracking. So, I've been using makeshifts of my own construction, lately based on Access.
The set of tables I'd been using until a month or two ago was more-or-less satisfactory, but I never got around to constructing forms that would make data entry easy; I had to pull up numerous tables every time I wanted to enter a transaction, and it got to be a real nuisance. Finally, I got tired of it and quit keeping records.
Obviously, this was a bad thing.
I've taken advantage of this week's break to reconstruct the system. In particular, I've eliminated one bit of foolishness; I was trying to keep items like "1 bag of dog treats, $x.xx" in the same table with "$40 withdrawn from checking account", even though the latter needed to be treated differently (since running balances are important for the one, but not the other). Also, this time, I've built up a decent set of forms, so that I can create a transaction (Shop'n'Save, Nov. 25, 2005, $xx.xx) and immediately itemize it, with running totals kept for error-checking and each item assigned to its appropriate account (meat, pet food, sales tax...).
I just ran through entering several transactions, and it works like a charm. There are still some bugs in it - in particular, I'd like to be able to create new accounts on the fly, instead of having to close the transaction form, open the accounts form, create the account, and then re-open the transaction form - but it's much better than what I had. I'm rather pleased with myself.
The set of tables I'd been using until a month or two ago was more-or-less satisfactory, but I never got around to constructing forms that would make data entry easy; I had to pull up numerous tables every time I wanted to enter a transaction, and it got to be a real nuisance. Finally, I got tired of it and quit keeping records.
Obviously, this was a bad thing.
I've taken advantage of this week's break to reconstruct the system. In particular, I've eliminated one bit of foolishness; I was trying to keep items like "1 bag of dog treats, $x.xx" in the same table with "$40 withdrawn from checking account", even though the latter needed to be treated differently (since running balances are important for the one, but not the other). Also, this time, I've built up a decent set of forms, so that I can create a transaction (Shop'n'Save, Nov. 25, 2005, $xx.xx) and immediately itemize it, with running totals kept for error-checking and each item assigned to its appropriate account (meat, pet food, sales tax...).
I just ran through entering several transactions, and it works like a charm. There are still some bugs in it - in particular, I'd like to be able to create new accounts on the fly, instead of having to close the transaction form, open the accounts form, create the account, and then re-open the transaction form - but it's much better than what I had. I'm rather pleased with myself.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 02:02 am (UTC)Access sounds like a major tool for this purpose, but it will do some things for you while getting in your way.
How about different tables on different sheets of a spreadsheet? Won't be able to do some of the fancy queries that Access can do, but you can do quite a bit, and it is very flexible.
One of the things the financial packages like Quicken and Money will do for you is remember past entries so that if you do many things repetitively the program will fill in some of the blanks for you. You can get a spreadsheet to do that, but you have to work at it. I haven't used Access enough to know whether you can get it to do that, too. (used to work for Lotus and avoid Officeware when I can.)
no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 02:42 pm (UTC)At one time I tried designing my system from scratch; this was when I was using OS/2. IBM had a simply marvellous C++ environment - CSet 2 (later given other names) - on that operating system, but they never really gave OS/2 the support it needed, and I finally bailed on it. (IBM did make a version of CSet 2 for Windows, but it was much less satisfactory.) I've looked at a couple of C++ environments on Windows - Borland, and... one other, which I've forgotten - but they seemed much clumsier, and I don't seem to have the energy for that level of programming any more, any way.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 04:06 am (UTC)I've finally wrestled Excel into an acceptable routine. Not it's doing, mind you; only that I've messed with it long enough that it no longer makes me howl in frustration. Progress? Yeah, well, sorta.
QuickBooks I still curse roundly and soundly every time I open it. I had to abandon "Simple Start"--bought solely because it was the only thing my creakingly ancient Win98 machine would run--but it proved utterly worthless. So I upgraded the computer, then gritted my teeth and upgraded QB, too, to "Pro". Better the devil you know, or some such. *grumps anew*
Still the same ol' paternalistic, hand-holding, "idiot-proof" (HA!) crap it always was, I've found. Vastly over-belled & -whistled, too, of course, as all canned financial software is. And every month, as I have to post the gross receipts sales tax check, I want to just reach in and scrape the whole d*mned package off the hard drive with my bare fingernails!
The only thing I genuinely miss about my former career in the car business is the amazing software we had. Though Reynolds was getting a little too "New! and! Improved!" for my taste in some ways, the basic, every day, REALLY USEFUL AND RETRIEVABLE INFORMATION it would generate was still just astonishingly good stuff. What a pity they don't write for general businesses, only for dealerships....
no subject
Date: 2005-11-26 02:35 pm (UTC)I'm sorry to hear of your struggles with software. I suppose arranging for custom-made software would take too much time (both in explaining exactly what you want, and in waiting for it to be written and debugged) and, probably, too much money as well. I'll admit to being grateful that my needs are so much simpler than yours! (Also, they're mostly self-generated, so I can jettison any that cause too much trouble...)
no subject
Date: 2005-11-27 06:12 am (UTC)Aha! That's it. D*mn thing's engineered by Humanoids!!!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-29 03:18 am (UTC)