I think the best thing to do is to try all the reports, press all the buttons, pull all the levers and see what happens, this is how I learn to do things and it is rather fun to see what you can do with it. Gnucash is not a hand holding program, you have to use your brain - as Michael Novak oft states, it is a pen and ink on paper electronic equivalent. It's strength is in its simplicity, it does accounts but is not an auto-pilot do-it-all-for-you program, and I hope it never evolves into one of those other programs that present you with a screen that looks like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, blinding you with a multitude of colours, pie-charts, line graphs and flashing bits and pieces warning of financial doom. I welcome the sober presentation of my accounts in table format that i can directly enter and change without the need for pop-up transaction panes, or any of the other paraphernalia that haunts the latest shiny shiny. Long may it continue.
On Sun, 18 May 2025 at 20:55, sunfish62--- via gnucash-user < [email protected]> wrote: > Your points regarding account selection are valid. > > I believe that one or two of the default reports are structured to use > "All Asset Accounts" for example (don't ask me which ones; I don't recall > at this moment). It might be possible for someone with Scheme skills (not > me!) to examine those reports to see how they are constructed, and build > out an alternative report that behaves as you wish. > > David T. > > On May 18, 2025, 8:28 PM, at 8:28 PM, David Warren <[email protected]> > wrote: > >I certainly agree you shouldn't use gnucash (or any other double entry > >bookkeeping system) without spending appropriate hours to learn > >double-entry bookkeeping. > >I also certainly agree that gnucash provides a *rich *set of reporting > >tools, and that it is incumbent on the user (one can now use an LLM to > >help!) to understand the types of things one might want to use a report > >to > >do, and there are lots of good reasons to set up and then *save > >*reports > >that will then be used repeatedly for circumstances the user > >understands. > > > >Having said that, the sole method gnucash appears to allow for *account > >selection *on saved reports is the user must *manually *select the > >accounts > >one wants included in such reports. If the user ever creates/adds a > >single > >new account, that account will *not *be included in a saved report, at > >least in my experience. It would be completely *reasonable* for > >gnucash to > >also allow users to specify some *logic *for which accounts should be > >included in saved reports. Complex logic would probably be quite > >difficult > >to program, but logic as simple as checkboxes to include/exclude ALL > >{income, expense, asset and/or liability} accounts, I am confident to > >say > >would be *highly *utilized and appreciated by the gnucash user > >community. > > > >On Sun, May 18, 2025 at 10:39 AM Michael or Penny Novack via > >gnucash-user < > >[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> > It would be very helpful if (and maybe there already is) there was > >a > >> > place that would say what would be the usual or common options for > >the > >> > reports. For example, I think the transaction report should > >include > >> > all the expense accounts. > >> > > >> > Just a bit of guidance would be incredibly helpful. > >> > > >> > I'm sure that there are other reports that would be helpful, but I > >> > don't know if I should select everything, or just the asset > >accounts, > >> > or the income accounts, or.... (and so on). > >> > >> Misunderstanding. Gnucash is a TOOL for partially automating double > >> entry bookkeeping. In terms of how such systems are called, "general > >> ledger" > >> > >> Take ANY Tool, say a hammer. The manual for a hammer might tell you > >what > >> it is for (drive nails) and how to properly use it (grip, etc.). Out > >of > >> scope for the hammer manual to teach you "what is a nail used for?" > >"why > >> would I want to use a nail" etc. > >> > >> What you are needing is something along the lines of "what is double > >> entry bookkeeping?" describing things like what are the usual > >reports, > >> how are they formatted, etc. Things that are NOT specific to > >gnucash. > >> In other words, if we are talking about a report such as "Profit and > >> Loss", what it looks like, what's included in it, etc. that is > >> independent of how the double entry "general ledger" is kept. Thus > >the > >> report ends up looking the same (same data in it) whether produced by > >> gnucash or manually during the process of "closing the books" the > >books > >> being pen and ink on paper (as it was when I learned ~65 years ago). > >> > >> Sorry, gnucash makes the work of double entry bookkeeping easier, but > >> you still have to learn about double entry bookkeeping. > >> > >> Michael D Novack > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> gnucash-user mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > >> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > >> ----- > >> 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 > >----- > >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 > ----- > 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 ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. 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