David,
Actually, the big advantage of creating a Tags account (just one) is
that *no* sub-accounts are needed. If you add a Tags account entry into
the split of any transaction anywhere, you can type anything you want
into that entry's Memo field -- #July-Meeting, #November-Meeting,
#Tijuana-Vacation, ... whatever. Whatever text you type into the Tags
split entry for that transaction means you can run a Transaction Report
later and filter for any tag that you might have put in that Memo field.
Also, let's say you have multiple credit card accounts involved in the
meetings; but maybe you don't recall which credit card accounts were
used. When you run the Transaction Report for your specified tag (the
Tag split memo field) you don't need to know or care what other accounts
might have been involved in the transaction. You just run the report
against that one Tags account and filter it for the tag you want.
Like I said before, it's not very elegant; but it's simple ... and it
does the job.
Tom
On 07/27/2026 10:21 PM, David T. wrote:
... Or you could just put your tag into the split line memo field
directly, without creating the Tags account.
If I were going down this approach (not saying I would), I'd probably
create subaccounts for each tag I wanted, and then simply add the
empty split for the specific tag: Tags:July Meeting
Then, a number of reports can be run filtering on that account. I
haven't tested this in any way, but believe it might work.
David T.
On July 28, 2026 7:09:14 AM GMT+05:30, Tom Route36
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Clint, I was looking back thru this email chain; and I noticed
that earlier you were saying that what you were really hoping for
was that GnuCash had the ability to do tagging. Well, it kinda
does -- although not officially, and not in a very straightforward
manner. I personally don't have a need to do this on a regular
basis; but if you're looking for a way to tag transactions with
some sort of free-form tag names, this might work for you. Create
a new asset account, and name it Tags. When you want to tag a
transaction, say a meeting room that was paid for with a credit
card, add a split entry to that transaction. The split you add
will be a zero-amount; but what it does is it gives you a
dedicated Memo field. In that Memo field for the Tags account,
you can now type in your tag -- e.g., #July-Meeting. If you add a
similar split entry for every transaction related to the July
Meeting, you can then run a Transaction Report that only includes
the Tags account, and that you can filter for only those
transactions that include the tag #July-Meeting. It's not a very
elegant solution; but it might help get you that tagging feature
that GnuCash lacks. Hope this helps a little. Tom On 07/25/2026
10:36 AM, Clint Chaplin wrote:
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.
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