Re: [Orgmode] Org and financial data

[Matthew Lundin]

Hi Memnon,
Memnon Anon <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi!
>
> A new year has started and I try to get even more organized.
> So, I think it is time to keep track of my financial data, and
> I think orgmode is the way to go.

If your needs are simple (i.e., just tracking discretionary spending)
you might consider using properties and column views to keep track of
where your money is going. I find that this creates a nice way to sum
up weekly, monthly, and yearly expenditures. I described my admittedly
simple setup in this post:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/9827

I create a tree for each year, a subtree for each month, and a subtree
for each week, such as:

---begin org file---

#+COLUMNS: %30ITEM(Item) %15spendtype(Category) %10amount(Amount){$} 
%10goal(Goal){$} 
#+PROPERTY: spendtype_all food office household entertainment

* 2008
** December 
   :PROPERTIES:
   :END:
*** Week One (November 29-December 6)
    :PROPERTIES:
    :goal:     #fill in your own goal here#
    :END:
**** Post Office[2008-12-02 Tue]
     :PROPERTIES:
     :amount:   14.40
     :spendtype: office
     :END:
**** Grocery store[2008-12-04 Thu]
     :PROPERTIES:
     :amount:   18.86
     :spendtype: food
     :END:
     
# More entries can go here.

---end property---

With this setup, column views provides a nice summary of weekly and
monthly spending. If you like, you can also add weekly goals to the
headline for the week and compare yearly, monthly, weekly sums to your
goals.

To search for a type of spending you easily do a tag search (e.g, C-a
m +spendtype="food"), optionally restricting the search to a
particular subtree. You could then use columns view in the agenda to
see the total.

Warning: property searches will be really slow if you don't restrict
them to your spending file. If you prefer, you could easily use tags
to keep track of types of spending.

Finally, Eric Schulte's org-collector.el is great for creating
filtered tables of results. See this thread for more information:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/9908

For more sophisticated financial tracking, I'd probably recommend a
tool devoted to that purpose.

Best,
Matt