So I'm getting more interested in banking and accounting, largely because a friend and I are starting a business for the first time. When I saw "Accounting for Computer Scientists" on HN (http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-comput...) it was a revelation to me, because I didn't realize that accounting could be so cleanly modeled as a graph structure.
Ever since then I've been itching to create some git-like software for accounting, where you have a repository of accounts and transactions. I feel like there is so much unexplored territory here in terms of analysis and visualization. For example, I want a way of saying "this insurance bill is for six months of coverage" and then seeing my bi-weekly breakdown of expenses include two weeks worth of that insurance bill. I want to be able to tag expenses as non-discretionary (taxes), periodic (mortgage), or discretionary (latte) as an easy way of understanding my overall cash flow. I want to be able to amortize my vacations over the whole year. etc.
I want to be able to view what my hypothetical cash flow would be if I cut out certain periodic expenses or added others.
A lot of this is probably more complicated than what most people would want to do -- that's why I think the important part is having a standard repository model that's easily programmable.
Ever since then I've been itching to create some git-like software for accounting, where you have a repository of accounts and transactions. I feel like there is so much unexplored territory here in terms of analysis and visualization. For example, I want a way of saying "this insurance bill is for six months of coverage" and then seeing my bi-weekly breakdown of expenses include two weeks worth of that insurance bill. I want to be able to tag expenses as non-discretionary (taxes), periodic (mortgage), or discretionary (latte) as an easy way of understanding my overall cash flow. I want to be able to amortize my vacations over the whole year. etc.
I want to be able to view what my hypothetical cash flow would be if I cut out certain periodic expenses or added others.
A lot of this is probably more complicated than what most people would want to do -- that's why I think the important part is having a standard repository model that's easily programmable.