Finance app required

[d_aero]

I am hoping to receive my c860 soon and will probably install the 1.21 cacko rom.

I was wondering if any knows of a good finance package that does VAT tracking since I need to do some business accounts on the Z - preferably that would work with the standard ROM or cacko 1.21 ROM.

[coolass]

You can use Hancom Sheets like an Ecxel db or maybe Zmoney

[d_aero]

Thanks for the idea.

Do you know where I can get zmoney - all the links I have tried are dead.

[skoorb]

http://www.ossh.com/zaurus/arm-binaries/ol...ney_0.4_arm.ipk

[coolass]

skoorb beat me to it..hahahahaha

[jmbowman]

The lack of a good app in this category is the single largest inconvenience in my Zaurus usage.  When I first got an SL-5500, I figured I\'d have to write my own database and my own financial app; and while I\'ve managed to put out 11 version releases of the database, I never manage to free up enough time away from working on that to write the finance app.  Started on it a couple of months ago, then got sucked right back into the PortaBase 1.9 release and doing a PortaBase Mac OS X port (now basically done).  Sigh...

Way back in the days of the original Zaurus development contest, there was an app called Stash that tried to fill this gap; it died after one preview release.  Then there was ZMoney, which got renamed to QashMoney; it got further than Stash and got updated not too horribly long ago, but is still missing a fair number of important features.  For $19.95 you can get tkcKapital, but it seems like that doesn\'t cut it for a lot of people either.

If you can cope with Japanese, there are a couple of other options.  There\'s a program called Zaif that looks decent, but again is missing some features that a lot of people need.  There\'s also a program available here that apparently runs as a perl CGI through Apache, viewed in Opera; while it seems to be moderately popular, it doesn\'t seem like the most elegant or easy-to-install solution.

A few other programs have come out that are either written in Java (and hence are usually too slow and don\'t quite look right) or are intended for very basic expense tracking.  I\'m not sure what other people are looking for, but what I need is a program very similar to FreeCoins, which is what I used to use on my Visor (until I put in too many transactions and performance got pretty abysmal).  Basically something that supports hierarchical accounts, split transactions, and double entry bookkeeping (other features would be nice to have also, but those are the ones I would absolutely need in order to find it useful).  I\'m using a PortaBase file for now, but the interface isn\'t really ideal for that and can\'t be without overly complicating the application...

So if there are any good financial apps I\'ve missed, please point them out.  If you\'re working on one and actually making progress on it, please speak up.  Otherwise, I\'ll try to free up time to start or improve one...hopefully sometime this year...

[piotr]

JABP - Just another banking program. Its great and works under java so you can use it on every computer you can think of.(sort of... ;-)
you will find it in
killefiz.de/zaurus
piotr

[gester]

What exactly would people be looking for in a banking app?
I\'ve been using zmoney for a bit now and not to thrilled with it.
I\'ve allso been thinking about developing for the Z but havent really had a good enough reason, and this sounds like one.  
What fetures would people want?
and what if anything would people be willing to pay, I would likely GPL the project anyway but figured I\'d ask.

JMBOWMAN: what do you use for a dev rig, I\'ve messed around trying to set things up on my rh9 laptop and havent gotten far.  any tips would be great.

Gester

[piotr]

gester - the main thing with such an application is portability and ability to syncronize files between zaurus and desktop.
I ve been using banking programs since palm III.  The main problem was always exchanging files and compatibility with other programs.
Close to ideal is JABP(just another banking program) - you can run it on every platform supporting java.
I think if price of such application will be below 10$ there will be a lot people want to buy it(keep in mind that jabp is free).
Features:
account management.
repetitive transactions.
a way to automatize entering data
it should find often made transaction and then help filing transaction details.
Of course editing of categories, simple graphs etc.
The problem is simple but it is hard to make it.
So there r lot of space for You :-)
Piotr

[jmbowman]

I\'d seen JABP, but haven\'t been particularly inclined to try it out; I have yet to try a java program on the Zaurus (even trivial ones) that is nearly as responsive as a native Qt/C++ app.  Of course, the same is true on desktop PCs...I really only consider java a viable option for GUI apps if:

- You need to put something together quickly, it\'s only going to get used by people within your organization, and you already have people with java programming experience; OR

- You\'re writing something that will only be used by developers/power users who are willing to work through installation problems and put up with UI quirks

Generally, I think most GUI apps are better off in either C++ or python, depending on the requirements.  And this is coming from somebody who\'s been coding java for a living for about 4 years...

I\'m doing PortaBase development primarily on a Debian box; I set up a Zaurus development environment following the instructions in the Compiler Setup Howto.  Some of the information in the INSTALL file from the PortaBase source code tarball may be useful also, especially if you\'re trying to compile libraries.

Important tips for data storage: use an embedded database library, and make sure to save text in a Unicode-compatible encoding.  I\'d use Metakit with strings encoded in UTF-8 (same as PortaBase), but SQLite would probably work ok too.  Any kind of storage scheme using text files (including XML) or homegrown binary storage is going to cause more scalability and/or performance problems than it\'s worth; just be sure to support at least one or two text-based formats for import and export.

[nilch]

jimbowman, or anybody else willing to take on a finance app that betters and performs better than tkcKapital etc  - all kudos to you. Though personally I dont think MANY people are interested in a finance apps that much - since most of Zaurus users seem to be the geeky types looking for a text editor or FTP app or sniffer or something techy like that . I have rarely seen a user application - common denominator user app - as being listed as a favourite or most wanted app in those kinds of related threads.

But still there should be enough takers to make the effort worthwhile - either in financial terms (if its a commercial app) or in terms of wide usage (free software - free always has a wider usuage than commercial even if its less usefull).

Personally, even I don\'t prefer Java apps - even Python apps are faster than the Java apps and I think Python apps are slow to start-up (having written a few myself).  Common database apps are ok for smalling type database oriented apps, but a full fledged finance app does take a lot more - as jmbowman pointed out.

[tg]

If you create a finance app that can cleanly import/export quicken files and maybe even
synchronize directly with online bank accounts then you would have a relly killer app
and I think even geeks wouldl go for that. But if you have to  duplicate you qucken stuff into
zaurus by either typing it or creating ugly scripts to massage data into quicken etc then I can\'t imagine too many people would be interested.
Inability to sync and import/export is still the biggest downfall of too many zaurus apps - see thekompany products - a lot of their PIM products could have been decent if their developers could actually ever complete syncing - their projects to get PIMs to sync are taking so long it\'s become a joke - they should just hire zautrix and be done with it in a couple of weeks - except  ko/pi is at this point so much better than what theKompany has that they probably decided to let their PIM stuff die (look at what they have been releasing lately - shopping list app update? Can\'t wait to get a hold of that useful app! (NOT).

[TonyOlsen]

You can use Hancom Sheets like an Ecxel db

That\'s what I started using, but it very quickly becomes very slow very fast when th enumbers start filling up.  It doesn\'t appear to be efficient for large arrays of numbers... and that\'s only abut 1-2 months of data.  I want something I can put 1-3 years of data into.

Also, in order to make use of all of the functions I have to save it in Hancom Sheet\'s proprietary format.  Hancom for your desktop costs money (isn\'t free), so you won\'t be able to use the file you create here anywhere else, without paying extra money.

...Zmoney

Ah... now known as QashMoney...  THAT\'s why I couldn\'t find ZMoney anywhere.

Stash, QashMoney, tkcCapital, JABP, opie-checkbook  

What exactly would people be looking for in a banking app?  

for me... I want to entire everything in my checkbook, and have it tell me how much I have \"virtually\" and how much I have \"actually\" (what is physically in the bank based on what has and hasn\'t gone through).

...but the biggest thing for me is compatibility.  I don\'t want to have to enter this data again elsewhere.  Ideally it would be great if this data ended up in a database file that I could then use on my desktop and create ASP reports off of it.

Though personally I dont think MANY people are interested in a finance apps that much - since most of Zaurus users seem to be the geeky types  

Having my finances on my Zaurus was one of the 4, or so, things I bought the Zaurus for...  It is important to me.

Stash, QashMoney, tkcCapital, JABP, Opie-Checkbook... which ones do you prefer?  What are the pro\'s and con\'s of each?  Which ones support a database data file that can be used elsewhere... especially in another database?

Thanks!

(I\'m thinking of making the jump soon...)

[zautrix]

For me,
KMyMoney looks quite promising.

I have to look at it later this year.
If it turns out to be really useful, it would be another candidate to make it KDE independent, i.e. to make it running on Zaurus.

The current version is 0.6rc3.
Maybe one of you  can investigate the current features of it and report here a short summary?
I by myself do know nothing about it ... just found it in the KDE 3.2.1 release on Suse 9.1

z.

[snufkin]

i\'m using zaif and quite satisfied with it.  the only problem is it does not support currency and i mainly use the fin app to manage my travelling expenses.  btw, i can use different account for different currency but the summary report become useless for me  .

frankly, i can\'t hardly remember whether i\'ve done some localization stuff for english interface.  but my zaif is a fully english app.