Baffled by reports (and some guessed solutions)

[Derek Atkins]

Ross Boylan <RossBoylan at stanfordalumni.org> writes:

>> Have you tried the "Income Statement"?  This is what used to be called
>> the Profit and Loss report.  It was renamed to be more "accountant
>> friendly" but it's really the same thing.  You might want to try it.
>
> That looks like exactly what I need.
>
> Maybe "Income and Expense Statement" would be clearer to the
> non-accountant.

Maybe..  But renaming reports is... hard.  It breaks all existing
configurations so it's not something to be done lightly.  The time to
have commented on this was during the 1.9 test series.  At this point,
I'm afraid it just can't be re-renamed.   Personally I liked it
being called "Profit & Loss" myself.   *shrugs*

>> >2. The meaning of the customization tab for accounts are hard to make out.
>> > a) The account selection widget shows items with white, grey, and
>> > dark backgrounds.  Initially I thought the dark meant selected
>> > (which I still do), but I started wondering if the grey meant
>> > selected and white meant not selected, which might explain why some
>> > accounts were missing.
>> 
>> I'm not sure..
>
> I think the dark background is selected, the grey and white is just
> alternating lines.

I think I'd need to see a screen shot to see what you mean by this.

>> >4. The general help that comes with the program contains a reference
>> >to a chapter on reports, but doesn't seem to have such a chapter.
>> 
>> Reference?  Please use http://cvs.gnucash.org/docs/HEAD/ as the leader
>> for the reference...
> This was from the program menu, Help | Tutorial and Concepts Guide.
> Section 4.7.5 says, in a note section, "More details on the reports
> will be presented in the Report chapter."  There is no such chapter.
>
> I see Help | Contents gets you something different; section 3.4 there
> talks about reports.  The version I have seems a little behind the
> program, since 3.4.1.3 doesn't include "Income Statement" or "Budget
> Report".

What version of gnucash-docs do you have?   This is why I suggested
that URL, as it has the most recent version of the DOCS.

> Final question: When entering a split transaction, I've always wanted
> an "assign balance to this split" shortcut.  Is there such a thing?

I don't understand..  While you're entering a split transaction, the
remaining balance should always be on the 'blank split'.  So it should
be very easy for you.  Are you finding that the register isn't putting
the remaining balance onto the open split?

-derek

-- 
       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