I have a massive chart of accounts, how can I search?

[Graham Lane]

The difficulty is that if I have a project that we dont get contributions
for very often, I cant always remember what sub-sub category it goes in.
The CoA I am following is something that United way dreamed up that has 2
primary types of income/expenses, and each of those have several subtypes
of income/expenses that can each have project restricted or not restricted
income/expenses for the same project meaning that some of it is in assets,
liabilites, income or expenses.
  Its hard to remember the whole tree for something I access rarely.  Think
of it like "labor" or "materials', and each gets a location in different
expense and income categories becasue each can depend on the type of
building, for profit or not for profit, restricted funds or from
unrestricted funds....It takes a while to find the word "materials" in one
of four sub-sub-sub group structures. But if I could search for "materials"
I could find all four and choose the right one much faster.

On Tue, Apr 19, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Graham Lane <grahamlane at gmail.com> writes:
>
>
>
> For what it's worth, my personal account tree has 486 accounts..
>
> So what exactly is so unwieldly?  Keeping your accounts in hierarchies
> is exactly what you should be doing.  Just make sure they are logical to
> you.
>
> Note that when you're entering transactions there are keyboard shortcuts
> to handle your account hierarchies.  I.e. you can type:
>
>   E x : U t : E l
>
> to get to Expenses:Utilities:Electricity
>
> -derek
>
> > On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> >
> >     trythis <grahamlane at gmail.com> writes:
> >
> >     > I am dealing with a massive chart of accounts and sometimes
> finding the
> >     right
> >     > account takes a long time.  Is there a way to search the accounts
> page?
> >     > Sorry if I missed something obvious. /
> >     > Thanks.
> >
> >     Have you tried structuring your account tree to make it easier to
> find
> >     accounts?  My top-level CoA only has 5 accounts.  Then each tree is
> >     branched out.  The largest single place in my tree is the first
> >     sub-level of "Expenses", but since I rarely really look in that
> subtree
> >     it's not a big deal to me.  I just keep that part compacted; my whole
> >     CoA that I leave open fits onto just over one visible "page".
> >
> >     > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> >     > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> >
>
> --
>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>