Hi Gord
Your revised example looks good to me, but I recommend you now move on
to a creating your "real world" chart of accounts instead of these
abstract examples. You can always add new accounts and revise the
hierarchy as you go.
Here is an example were you will find Levels selection useful - drilling
down from summary to details in the same report.
See attached screenshot of a sample Income & Expense report shown at
Levels 1, 2, and 3.
I find that selecting by accounts, or groups of related accounts, is
useful to explore particular areas in greater detail; and again Level
selection is also useful in this context.
Re placeholders and leaves vs branches, and to extend the gardening
analogy, GnuCash is a flexible and very powerful chainsaw that can be
used to delicately trim the petals off your daisies, or clear fell your
entire orchard. Once you master it, people will come from near and afar
to admire your garden. Until then, make sure you backup your orchard often.
Enjoy your weekend ;--)
Regards
Geoff
=====
On 21/02/2021 10:32 am, gnu Gord wrote:
Thank you to everyone that replied.
I'm still a bit confused as to why I can select the accounts to
include/exclude plus I can/need to select the level. It seems redundant to
me but maybe in some situations it's required.
In my example, it appears I have created my hierarchy incorrectly. The
suggestions I received seem to say I should have no transactions in branch
accounts and only in leaf accounts. (I didn't realize I needed to be a
gardener to do accounting!) LOL
I rearranged my example and it seems the report options work more the way I
would expect, but I'm still not clear on the level vs. account selection.
To summarize the way I understand it, all but the lowest level accounts
should be marked as Placeholder accounts (or at least have no
transactions). Is this closer to 'standard' accounting practice?
Here is the way I've redone the example. With "Expenses", "L2" and "L3" all
having the Placeholder option ticked:
[image: image.png]
On Sat, Feb 20, 2021 at 11:36 AM Dale Alspach <[email protected]> wrote:
Some accounting software, e.g., Quickbooks, use a virtual leaf "Other" in
reports to remove any ambiguity when there are transactions in a branch
account which are not in a leaf. Thus a report for the situation L3 $100
transaction and L4 $500 transaction would display
L3
L4 500
L3 - Other 100
Dale
On Sat, Feb 20, 2021 at 8:04 AM D. via gnucash-user <
[email protected]> wrote:
Geoff,
That was an excellent answer, and explains clearly a big reason why users
should strive to limit their transactions to leaf nodes in the account
hierarchy. (My own books include numerous violations of this premise,
BTW)
Gnucash has always allowed users to put transactions in intermediate
level
accounts, which some in the community have felt was Not Good, although
I've
been a little more equivocal about it. I'm not sure, but there may be an
outstanding bug request on the behavior.
I *do* think Gord's final question is an interesting one. It might be
useful to conduct some tests to see the interaction between account
selection and level setting in the various reports that use that method
of
grouping, and then update the docs with information.
Best,
David T.
-------- Original Message --------
From: Geoff <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri Feb 19 18:37:21 EST 2021
To: gnu Gord <[email protected]>, [email protected]
Subject: Re: [GNC] Expense Over Time report
Hi Gord
It appears that L3 is both a parent of L4 and has transactions worth
$100 itself.
Thus reporting on L3 is ambiguous - do you want only its transactions
($100), or its transactions plus the sum of its children ($100 + $500 =
$600)?
I suggest that you only record transactions against the lowest level
children accounts in your hierarchy (the "leaves" and not the
"branches").
Hope this helps.
Regards
Geoff
=====
On 20/02/2021 10:07 am, gnu Gord wrote:
I'm trying to understand this report and it just isn't working the way
I
expect.
Below is a screenshot of my test chart of accounts, for reference.
I have one expense of $100 in account L3 and one expense of $500 in
account
L4
If I ask for an Expense Over Time report and select L3 and* "Show
Accounts
until Level" 3*, I get $600 in the report. If I select *"Show Accounts
until level" 4*, I get $100
If I select 2 or 1 in the "Show Account until level" I get nothing,
which
is OK.
If I select 5 or 6 I get the same output as 4.
This is not the way I expected it to work.
I'm not really clear what the "Show Accounts until level" option is
used
for. If I can select the account I want to be included/excluded in the
report why do I need to also specify the level?
Version: 4.4
Build ID: 4.4+(2020-12-28)
[image: image.png]
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
[email protected]
To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
-----
Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
