how to view total for expenses subaccount

[Mike or Penny Novack]

"Expense accounts shouldn't be used directly to record
how much you are spending in each of the categories, instead, you should use
the actual account you used for that expense (e.g. your credit card) by
making a payment from your credit card to the expense account." 

Lovely "journal less" automated accounting (there actually is a journal available but ordinarily you just deal with the ledgers).

You can enter transactions from either side of the ledger. Probably most people would think it simpler to enter from the credit card specifying which expense account. But you could just as well have entered the transaction the other way around in the proper expense account specifying this credit card as having done the paying for it. 

For example -- suppose one of the orchard managers of our organization sends me a report with receipts that he had two items buying "consumable orchard supplies" with his organizational credit card, one using an account at a vendor which will invoice the organization monthly, and one using his own personal credit card. So I would have four transactions to enter, all involving the same expense account (consumable orchard supplies) but paid for three different ways. I would likely do this work all from the expense account.

On the other hand, suppose I am working down the credit card report entering items I wasn't even told about (my people don't always report to me timely fashion -- but often I can tell from the item how to book it). Now I would enter these as was suggested since the same paying account but different expense accounts.

In other words, enter from the side that makes most sense in terms of your work flow.

Michael D Novack, FLMI