Transaction Report

Mike C. subscribe307 at verizon.net
Wed Jul 14 08:07:56 EDT 2010


I totally agree with Colin's comments about the overall design on the 
program.  It is so much easier to use than Quicken due to the data entry 
features and double entry format that keeps everything in the right 
bucket.  Those complaining  should consider the alternatives and be 
thankful for such a great free program.
I also agree that the most frustrating thing is the lack of a way to 
modify custom reports and save to the same report name.
Mike
On 7/14/2010 3:08 AM, Colin Scott wrote:
> If I enter a simple transaction like this:
>
> <date>  <ref no>  "Cheques Received"
>     <income account>  "multiple payers"<credit>  £157.60
>     <bank account>                          <debit>   £157.60
>
> then on a Transaction Report for the bank account the details appear
> pretty much as above.  Specifically, under "other account", the report
> prints the income account name.
>
> However, I often, for clarity of the accounts, enter transactions with
> multiple splits referring to the same account.  For example, the above
> transaction might well be entered like this:
>
> <date>  <ref no>  "Cheques Received"
>     <income account>   <first payer name>    <credit>  £100.00
>     <income account>   <second payer name>   <credit>  £ 57.60
>     <bank account>                          <debit>   £157.60
>
> When _this_ transaction is printed on the bank account's Transaction
> Report, then under "other account" it simply prints "split" instead of
> the accout name.  Now, in single-line format that is fairly reasonable -
> after all, what else could one do?  However, in mult-line format then it
> ought really to print the other account names, even when that  account
> name appears more than once, as here.  As it stands, the transaction
> report is actually pretty useless for what I need it for (which is as a
> printed record of the year's transacions for use by the auditors), as
> once printed it does not give the reader sufficient information to follow
> every movement through the system.
>
> I should like to say that, despite the recent lengthy threads in which
> the many alleged failings of the gnucash reports have been aired, this is
> the first real fault I have found with them in nearly 2 years of use.  OK,
> the reports are not perfect - but given the breadth of the audience they
> must satisfy they never could be.  They are, however, in general
> sufficiently flexible to produce something useful with a bit of
> option-tickling, and when that fails one can usually export the data into
> some other tool that will do what is required.
>
> No, I reserve my ire for the way in which custom reports are managed (if
> that is the word!).  Why can we not have the basic simple management
> facilities for report definitions that any reasonable user would expect
> to find - ie Open (a selected report), Save (the current report,
> replacing the previous definition), save-as, and delete (a selected
> report) - instead of the deeply horrible kludge that is there now?
>
> In my view if this aspect of the reporting system could be cleaned up and
> made properly user-friendly (eg one should be able to save the amended
> definition of a saved report, and saved reports should be visible
> _without_ having to restart gnucash!!!) then a very large proportion of
> the complaints about gnucash reports would simply disappear.
>
> With many thanks.
>
> Colin Scott
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