Realistic balance sheet and P/L statement

[spidersanghvi]

It would be very nice to have an accounting system in OpenTTD. I would love to develop that but I have very limited programming experience(VBA for excel and access only). It would be of great help, if you could give me references to read relating to openTTD interface development.
---
I would love to make that add-on. Improving on just accounting system I would also like to add a financial management module which would also calculate profitability of all the buses in future and lets you buy, sell and update vehicles to increase the profits of the company from a single interface.
Obviously given my present programming background, I have absolutely no idea what resources I should be reading next. Or how scripting such a program in openttd works.
Would love to get help from you guys for pointing out the references I should be reading.

[Alberth]

Basically, something like
- Economy code is all C++, so you should learn that language.
- Next, you should come up with some sort of design what you want to have.
- From that design, decide how to implement it in very small steps.
- Implement each step.
- Publish the patches for people to try.
- Based on the feedback, go back to the design, or the step implementations
- Repeat until done.

You may want to learn mercurial or git too, to keep track of your implemented steps.

[spidersanghvi]

Basically, something like
- Economy code is all C++, so you should learn that language.
- Next, you should come up with some sort of design what you want to have.
- From that design, decide how to implement it in very small steps.
- Implement each step.
- Publish the patches for people to try.
- Based on the feedback, go back to the design, or the step implementations
- Repeat until done.

You may want to learn mercurial or git too, to keep track of your implemented steps.

So rather than using a simple script I'll have to create a whole new patch that modifies the base code itself?

[Alberth]

... lets you buy, sell and update vehicles to increase the profits of the company from a single interface.

That implies deep integration into openttd, doesn't it?

Personally, I believe an accounting system is not going to be used much. Besides the fact that most people find accounting boring, openttd is a sandbox game, you have a zillion almost immediately. Who cares about money if your income is higher than you can spend?

[Stacko]

Ha ha, I almost forgot about my post in this forum!

Nice to see you like the idea, spidersanghvi. From the limited programming knwoledge I have, I would agree with
Alberth that implementing such a system will require quite some work. And you will probably not win the community's most-popular-feature award for it.

Anyway, I still agree that a proper accounting system (including enhancements to the computations behind it) would greatly add to the game. So if you decide to give it a try and need any help regarding the accounting framework, please let me know. I will gladly try and share my knowledge and ideas with you. I think I even still have got my notes and sketches about a possible balance sheet representation in OpenTTD from back then lying around somewhere...

[Baldy's Boss]

County me among the non-coders who would very much like expanded financial data (and full histories) to be available.

[spidersanghvi]

I think I even still have got my notes and sketches about a possible balance sheet representation in OpenTTD from back then lying around somewhere...

It would be great to see your ideas about this one. Though I fear space would be a real problem as keeping accounting entries of every transaction would obviously create a huge data.