Batch account assignment

[Fred Bone]

On 11 June 2010 at 11:15, Derek Atkins said:

> Hi,
> 
> Christopher Meredith <chmeredith at gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm really bad about assigning transactions to the proper accounts. I
> > usually have to go in and do months at a time to catch up. What I would
> > like to know is whether it is possible to do a search then assign all
> > the results to an expense account rather than doing each one
> > individually. So I would like to search for all transactions in which
> > the word "Comcast" appears in the description field, then assign all the
> > results to the account Expenses:Utilities:Internet. Is this possible?
> 
> No, there's no way to operate on multiple transactions at once.  You
> should do this when the transactions get entered in the first place.
> This is why the register has QuickFill, so that when you enter a Comcast
> transaction it will take the last Comcast transaction and 'reuse' the
> values (including the transfer account).

What you might try, if you have seriously many transactions that should 
all go to the same account is this:

1. Create a top-level account with a name that is a unique single letter 
("Z", perhaps). Be sure it's of the correct type (same type as the one 
you want to move them to).
2. Run your transaction search to retrieve the txns you need to change.
3. Go down the search-result list moving each one to the new account. 
Once you have the cursor on the "Account" field this is just a matter of 
hitting Z, return, and then the down-arrow three times (or a couple more 
for a multi-split txn). I estimate I was doing about 50 a minute when 
trying this just now. (Z key with left hand, others with right).
4. When all done, close the search-results tab, return to the Accounts 
tab, select account Z and hit "Delete". The resulting dialog lets you 
choose which account you want to move the transactions to.

For enough transactions, the time saved by only having to hit the Z key 
instead of (say) E:U:I will hugely outweigh the time taken to create and 
subsequently delete the dummy Z account. In addition, you're less likely 
to miskey "Z" than "E:U:I" - or at least, I am.