I saw the summary to Stephanie's post with interest - we had studied
vnmr_accounting for some time before finding it just didn't meet our needs
(primarily for the "line-item veto"). Our approach is different enough
that I'll post it, even though it doesn't solve Stephanie's problem
retroactively.
What we do here is move the console log into an Excel spreadsheet on a
PC. In practice we need to make billing adjustments from the strict login
times. This wouldn't be worth it just for colleagues who want to quibble
over charges (and who log themselves out during overnight
acquisitions). We also do outside service work which gets billed
differently. The payoffs are we have all of our records at our fingertips,
and that gives our department accountant enough complex numbers that he can
forge into tools to pry growth and support out of the university.
The transfer is easy after you've done it once. Because wtmp isn't
readable, do a cut&paste from vnmr_accounting's "console log" window into
a text editor. Copy that ascii file onto the PC. Add tabs to delimit the
columns, and you can open it with Excel. There are several easy ways for
adding columns of tabs. In MS Word, first create a column of tabs by
replacing <return> with <return><tab> (i.e. ^p with ^p^t). Then hold down
Alt while you click & drag to select the column. Cut it to clipboard, then
paste into top line wherever you want a column of tabs.
If any folks can post me on hints and tips for accounting I'd be grateful,
and post a summary.
-- Roger
Received on Thu Feb 07 2002 - 00:14:50 MST