Re: [Orgmode] Personal Finance in org-mode?

[Madhu Rao]

> Hi Madhu,
>
> Madhu Rao <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > Has anyone tried to configure org in a personal finance manager mode?
> > I looked in the mail archive, but couldn't find any related posts.
>
> These threads contain some ideas about tracking finances in org-mode:
>
> - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/10234/focus=10249
> - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/9663
> - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.finance.ledger.general/838

Hi Matt, Thanks for these links.

> > I thought org-mode with some remember capture templates will do that
> > stuff rather efficiently.
>
> It depends on what you'd like to accomplish. For a robust accounting
> solution (i.e., something that can easily tracks all your finances and
> can spit out data in all sorts of ways) I would second Carsten's
> recommendation of John Wiegley's ledger.
>
> For a while, I tried a home-brewed double bookkeeping solution in org
> mode using properties and columns. I used a small subtree for each
> transaction with one subitem for the debit and one for the credit,  
> with
> properties spendtype, account, assets, liabilities, income, equity,
> expenses. The structure of the tree was as follows:

Yes, this is pretty much what I was intending to keep track of. I did
setup something similar to the outline below. Also, a remember
capture, with tags and property query for entry and the category:               

("Finance" ?f "** %^{Title} %^g \n %u %^{HOW_MUCH}p %^{CATEGORY}p" "~/ 
Org/Finance.org")

> ,----
> | * Accounts
> | ** April
> | *** [2009-04-13 Mon] Transaction Name
> | **** [2009-04-13 Mon] Debit
> | **** [2009-04-13 Mon] Credit
> | *** Opening Balances...
> `----
>
> The sum of all my accounts could then be viewed by invoking column  
> view
> on the Accounts heading. Particular accounts could by summed up by  
> using
> agenda views and org-collector.

Yes, this will suffice. I will start off with using column view and
see how this scales.

Thanks for your notes.

Regards, Madhu

> The problem here, of course, is that once you have a large number of
> entries, it takes a lot of CPU cycles just to generate an account
> summary, since org-mode has to climb the entire outline tree and grab
> all the properties. In the end, I settled on ledger because of its
> power, speed, and flexibility.
>
> Best,
> Matt