Categorization of transactions

[Dennis Muhlestein]

David Ryder wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-03-05 at 08:02 -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 04, 2009 at 07:47:29PM +0100, Zdenek Muzik wrote:
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I am looking for a way to categorise transactions in GNUCash and cannot 
>>> find anything on the topic in the documentation.
>> I think you are looking for the equivalent of what Quicken calls
>> "classes". Arbitrary tags attached to txns that are completely
>> independent of the chart of accounts. No such feature exists in
>> gnucash, though it has been talked about several times. 
>>
> "though it has been talked about several times"
> Please, please don't go down that path ... I, for one, like gnucash
> because it doesn't and that is why I understand it. I never grasped the
> other methods and nearly went crazy.

I don't see how a feature like this could cause anyone any heartache who 
doesn't want to use it.  I used Quicken for a lot of years and though I 
didn't use Categories much, it didn't bother me that they were there.  I 
don't see why this feature would need to be implemented in a way that 
would be intrusive to anyone who didn't use/understand it.

On the other hand, I can see how this feature could be very helpful for 
some people.  For instance, I have more than one vehicle.  Every time I 
buy gas, I like to associate the transaction with which car it was 
purchased for.  I could just make sub accounts under fuel for more than 
one car, but that is annoying when you want to look at fuel for all 
vehicles (you have to open sub-accounts, select multiple accounts for 
reports, ect).  Next, what about insurance, repair, etc.  Do each of 
these accounts now need multiple sub accounts too?  What if I want to 
look at all the data (multiple accounts) for just one car?  Now I'd need 
to open lots of different accounts, or do a more complicated search.

So in summary, I don't see any reason this isn't a good feature to have. 
  Nor do I see any reason it would intrude upon anybody who doesn't want 
to use it.  If somebody has the time to develop it, I hope they go ahead 
and do it.

-Dennis