Why? tl;dr: to implement the missing ability to have "job costing"/"tagging".
Longer explanation: I keep the books for a group that has three meetings a year, in March, July, and November. Everything is focused on those three meetings, and very little happens (financially) outside of those meetings. At one point we had the ability to keep finances on a system that implemented tagging, and it was glorious! Unfortunately, the parent organization changed finance software several times since then, and none of the replacements have tagging. Each meeting has income (meetings fees, primarily), and expenses (F&B, AV, meeting rooms, etc). I'm keeping the finances in a rather elaborate spreadsheet that goes back to 2011 that we've sorta agreed will be our source of truth, but we want to switch to something more open and portable. I was hoping that with Gnucash I could use an account tree that started with the year, then the meeting, then the associated income and expenses, to sorta implement tagging. But it is not to be. Beancount is an option that has been suggested that actually has tagging, but I have other issues with its philosophy. On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 3:52 PM David Cousens <[email protected]> wrote: > wWy would you wish to mix Income and Expenses Clint? One represent > money coming into the entity you are measuring and the other money > going out. In accounting terms these are both temporary accounts > designed to measure the profitability (or surplus/deficit for non > profits) and the change of personalwealth in the case of individuals. > In traditional hard copy accounting these temporary accounts were > closed to Equity at the end of the relevant accounting period (monthly, > quarterly semi-annual or annually) depending on requirements for > reporting and or management. With computer based accounting this is not > really necessary as a distinct process as the program can query the > data and extract the relevant data for any desired period. If you need > to know the income, expenses and profit month by month for example you > can create a report to generate and provide this information and simply > run it as required. An income statement will generally do this by > changing the report options (Edit->Report Options)to the desired period > in the general tab. Adrien's earlier question about what it is you are > trying to achieve - What specific information do you desire to get? It > is likely building that into the account tree will make it more > difficult to extract the desired information. > > On Fri, 2026-07-24 at 15:00 -0700, Clint Chaplin wrote: > > I guess what I am asking is if I can mix "INCOME" and "EXPENSE" type > > accounts together, and have something different as a root account. > > > > On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 2:32 PM Michael or Penny Novack via gnucash- > > user < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Don't understand your question (don't understand the account tree > > > you > > > are trying to describe) > > > > > > Answer THIS question: Could you enter your account tree the old > > > fashioned way, pen and ink on paper? If so, you could enter that > > > account tree using gnucash. > > > > > > Michael D Novack > > > > > > > > > > > > On 7/24/2026 3:33 PM, Clint Chaplin wrote: > > > > Can GnuCash handle the following account tree? > > > > > > > > 2025 > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-03 > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-03:Income > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-03:Expense > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-07 > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-07:Income > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-07:Expense > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-11 > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-11:Income > > > > > > > > 2025:2025-11:Expense > > > > > > > > 2025:Other > > > > > > > > 2025:Other:Expense > > > > > > > > 2025:Other:Income > > > > > > > > > -- > > > There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except > > > the > > > equality of the grave. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > 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. > > > > > > > > > -- > David Cousens > -- Clint (JOATMON) Chaplin _______________________________________________ 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.
