Transaction Report - Subtotaling on Description? (Based on Previous Threads)

[aegross]

This post is more-or-less for the elders of the forum....those who have a lot
of experience with GC and double-entry accounting....

Was reporting on charitable giving for the current year, using the
Transaction Report. Tried to determine how to subtotal on Description;
couldn't determine how and scanned through past threads and found these:

http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Basic-reporting-Subtotal-by-Description-field-td1421478.html

http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/report-of-charitable-contributions-td4461126.html#a4461254

http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Which-report-am-I-looking-for-td4688925.html#a4689235


If I understand the primary points of these threads, it isn't possible to
subtotal on Description (without changing the code) and if one really wanted
to subtotal on description, they really should not have setup their account
like Expense:Charity but rather Expense:Charity:CharityName1,
Expense:Charity:CharityName2, etc.

The previous authors and myself maybe have thinking too much as to how a
Quicken-type program uses reports and not properly how to think this through
with proper double-entry accounting. Before reading these threads, it
wouldn't have occurred to me to have Expense sub-accounts dedicated to a
particular entity, esp if I may use an entity once or twice but never again.

It's not that there is a problem with the Transaction Report or even that it
"needs work" but rather, my understanding of double-entry accounting was
insufficient. Correct?

Regards,
Andrew Gross



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[Dale Alspach]

Rather than add another layer of accounts that I only need once a year, I
import the report into a spreadsheet, sort on the descriptions and dates,
and then add a subtotal cell for each group. This procedure requires care
during entry so that the descriptions will group the transactions
correctly. (I think you are already doing this.)

The import into spreadsheet step can require some manipulation so that
dates are recognized and amounts are recognized as numbers rather than text.

Dale

Post by aegross
This post is more-or-less for the elders of the forum....those who have a lot
of experience with GC and double-entry accounting....
Was reporting on charitable giving for the current year, using the
Transaction Report. Tried to determine how to subtotal on Description;
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Basic-reporting-
Subtotal-by-Description-field-td1421478.html
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/report-of-charitable-contributions-
td4461126.html#a4461254
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Which-report-am-I-
looking-for-td4688925.html#a4689235
If I understand the primary points of these threads, it isn't possible to
subtotal on Description (without changing the code) and if one really wanted
to subtotal on description, they really should not have setup their account
like Expense:Charity but rather Expense:Charity:CharityName1,
Expense:Charity:CharityName2, etc.
The previous authors and myself maybe have thinking too much as to how a
Quicken-type program uses reports and not properly how to think this through
with proper double-entry accounting. Before reading these threads, it
wouldn't have occurred to me to have Expense sub-accounts dedicated to a
particular entity, esp if I may use an entity once or twice but never again.
It's not that there is a problem with the Transaction Report or even that it
"needs work" but rather, my understanding of double-entry accounting was
insufficient. Correct?
Regards,
Andrew Gross
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[aegross]

Post by Dale Alspach
import the report into a spreadsheet

I plan on importing into a spreadsheet and creating a pivot table...but I
posted the inquiry more to check the philosophical underpinnings of what was
intended, i.e., should these sub-accounts have been created if such detail
was needed?

Thanks,
Andrew



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[Mike or Penny Novack]

Post by aegross
This post is more-or-less for the elders of the forum....those who have a lot
of experience with GC and double-entry accounting....
Was reporting on charitable giving for the current year, using the
Transaction Report. Tried to determine how to subtotal on Description;

I use a virtual set of books for this (because we want to track ALL
giving, not just tax deductible) and I do use separate accounts for each
donee in a hierarchy of classification (health, environmental, arts &
letters, etc. ). But that is mainly so that we can easily see as we go
through the year which organizations have or have not received their
annual donation, running totals of categories, etc.

Most of you would have little need for such detail.

Michael D Novack
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[Cindy Doughty]

The new version of the transaction report I posted has a check box named
"composite". If you check the box and select the entire year for the time
period it will give you the total for each description.

Doug

Post by aegross
This post is more-or-less for the elders of the forum....those who have a lot
of experience with GC and double-entry accounting....
Was reporting on charitable giving for the current year, using the
Transaction Report. Tried to determine how to subtotal on Description;
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Basic-reporting-
Subtotal-by-Description-field-td1421478.html
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/report-of-charitable-contributions-
td4461126.html#a4461254
http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Which-report-am-I-
looking-for-td4688925.html#a4689235
If I understand the primary points of these threads, it isn't possible to
subtotal on Description (without changing the code) and if one really wanted
to subtotal on description, they really should not have setup their account
like Expense:Charity but rather Expense:Charity:CharityName1,
Expense:Charity:CharityName2, etc.
The previous authors and myself maybe have thinking too much as to how a
Quicken-type program uses reports and not properly how to think this through
with proper double-entry accounting. Before reading these threads, it
wouldn't have occurred to me to have Expense sub-accounts dedicated to a
particular entity, esp if I may use an entity once or twice but never again.
It's not that there is a problem with the Transaction Report or even that it
"needs work" but rather, my understanding of double-entry accounting was
insufficient. Correct?
Regards,
Andrew Gross
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[aegross]

Post by Cindy Doughty
The new version of the transaction report I posted has a check box named
"composite".

Thanks Doug....where do we find the new report?

AEG



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[Cindy Doughty]

I have attached a copy of my modified version of the transaction report.
This version has the following features

1. On the display tab you can select to consolidate transactions and the
report will combine all similar transactions into one total entry. By
checking and unchecking entries on the display tab you can change how the
numbers are combined - by description, memo, notes, account. The date
ranged which is combined is controlled based on the date range selected on
the sorting tab. You can combine for an entire year, by month, by week, or
by quarter.



2. You can use the find option on the sorting tab to limit the report to
only descriptions containing specific text and you can limit the amount to
a given range such as only amounts greater than 500.



3. You can specify on the general tab you want all of the entries to be
scaled. By which I mean you can take the results for a full year and
divide it by 365 to see what the amounts are on a daily basis. You can
also take the numbers for a quarter and multiply by 4 to see what they
would look like on an annual basis.



4. You can easily select a time period on the general tab. Such as last
quarter, 2nd half of the year, or the month of January. I have also
modified the Income statement in the "other" menu to provide this same
capability.



To install, download the attached files and put them into your .gnucash
folder. In windows for me this is c:/users/UserName/.gnucash. Warning if
you already have a config.user file then first put into a different folder
and then copy the entries in config.user into your existing config.user
file. The transaction report will show up under reports, the income
statement in "Other".



Doug Doughty

Post by aegross

Post by Cindy Doughty
The new version of the transaction report I posted has a check box named
"composite".

Thanks Doug....where do we find the new report?
AEG
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[John Ralls]

Post by Cindy Doughty
I have attached a copy of my modified version of the transaction report.
This version has the following features
1. On the display tab you can select to consolidate transactions and the
report will combine all similar transactions into one total entry. By
checking and unchecking entries on the display tab you can change how the
numbers are combined - by description, memo, notes, account. The date
ranged which is combined is controlled based on the date range selected on
the sorting tab. You can combine for an entire year, by month, by week, or
by quarter.
2. You can use the find option on the sorting tab to limit the report to
only descriptions containing specific text and you can limit the amount to
a given range such as only amounts greater than 500.
3. You can specify on the general tab you want all of the entries to be
scaled. By which I mean you can take the results for a full year and
divide it by 365 to see what the amounts are on a daily basis. You can
also take the numbers for a quarter and multiply by 4 to see what they
would look like on an annual basis.
4. You can easily select a time period on the general tab. Such as last
quarter, 2nd half of the year, or the month of January. I have also
modified the Income statement in the "other" menu to provide this same
capability.
To install, download the attached files and put them into your .gnucash
folder. In windows for me this is c:/users/UserName/.gnucash. Warning if
you already have a config.user file then first put into a different folder
and then copy the entries in config.user into your existing config.user
file. The transaction report will show up under reports, the income
statement in "Other".

Doug,

Can we interest you in getting your reports added to the repository so that people don’t have to search the email archives for them?

Regards,
John Ralls

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