Batch account assignment

[Christopher Meredith]

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Fred Bone <Fred.Bone at dial.pipex.com> wrote:
> 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.

That's a good thought. I'll give it a shot. Thanks!