Selecting Date Range to view

Brandon Kuczenski brandon at 301south.net
Mon Aug 15 17:25:09 EDT 2005


Hello, Gnucash community.  I switched over to Linux a few months ago and 
have been using Gnucash as a replacement for Quicken 98.  Philosophically, 
I like it much better (particularly the double-entry accounting).  I am 
currently using version 1.8.10 on a Debian system.

One feature that I feel is lacking is an analog to a Quicken feature I 
used quite often: simply, the ability to display all the transactions from 
certain or all accounts from a certain period as an itemized list 
(Quicken's "Itemized Categories" report).  I have not found any way to 
replicate this functionality in Gnucash.  The closest I can get is a 
(non-intuitively named) 'profit and loss' report over a specified date 
range, but that does not show individual transactions, only their sums 
by-account.

The next-closest feature is "View -> Select Transactions -> Date Range" in 
each individual account window.  Though cumbersome, this would be 
sufficient EXCEPT: I believe that for Income and Expense accounts, when 
the Date Range is selected, the account's 'Balance' should start at zero 
at the beginning of the range.  This doesn't make sense for asset or bank 
accounts, but for income and expense accounts I believe it does -- since 
they don't really have true balances.

After that change, I could easily see at-a-glance how much money I spent 
from a certain account (c.f. Quicken 'category'), say, in August of 1998. 
As it is now, I have to set the date range and subtract the initial 
balance from the final balance myself.

What do you think of that?  It seems like the coding change would be 
near-trivial, though I haven't actually looked.  Does this seem like a 
reportable 'bug'?

As a possible extension, might it make sense to select a Viewable Date 
Range that is universal to all accounts, rather than or in addition to 
having a per-account viewable range?

Thanks for your development efforts.  Without this program it would not 
have been practical for me to switch from Windows.

-Brandon



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