How to make a "custom" expense report [was Re: Report customization nightmare]

[Mike Leone]

On 6/29/2010 10:16 PM, Andrew Sackville-West had this to say:
> On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 09:44:16PM -0400, Mike Leone wrote:
>> On 6/29/2010 9:17 PM, Andrew Sackville-West had this to say:
> [...]
>>
>>> a report with just expenses is easy to obtain. You merely have to set
>>> the options to adjust the default setup of one of the existing reports
>>> to get exactly what you want.
>>
>> Tried it; can't get it the way I want. Granted, I didn't spend a
>> whole lot of time on it.
>>
>> Perhaps you can tell me how not to show a piechart or bar chart,
>> when customizing those specific expense reports? It would be a help.
>
> ah... some understanding. So the expense charts are just that,
> charts. You cannot (to my knowledge) turn of the "chart" portion
> because that's all they are.

The reason that I mention those reports, is that those reports can give 
me the table of just expenses I want (no Income, no P&L), but can't turn 
off the chart portion.
>
>>
>>> Here are instructions to get a selection of expenses only in a text
>>> based report for a specific time period:
>>>
>>> 1. Click Reports ->   Income&   Expense ->   Income Statement
>>>
>>> wait for report to run. notice that it isn't quite what you want...
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>> 10. Click Apply or OK and review the results.
>>
>> It says "Total revenue: $0" as the first line, and "Net Loss for the
>> period" as the last line. And how do I not remove these unnecessary
>> lines, which I don't want in my report, since it has no bearing on
>> what I am looking for from this report? (I only want a table of
>> expenses, with totals. Not Income. Not Net Profit or Loss.)
>
> well, with all due respect to you... picky aren't we? ;-P

Perhaps. What I want is the table of expenses that I can get from the 
Barchart/Piechart Expense reports, without the reports. And no, that's 
no *too* picky ... :-) It's really just a table of only the things I ask 
for.

(In my case, I just want to see *required* expenses, that I absolutely 
*must* pay each month. That is just a subset of all expenses. And I only 
am interested in expenses, not Income - for this report, anyway)

>> That's what I'm talking about - I can sort of get what I want, if I
>> ignore the parts I don't want (such as the "Total revenue" and "Net
>> Loss" lines); I only want to know the totals of just the expenses I
>> want. I'm not looking for a real P&L statement; just a table of
>> specific expenses. (Ideally, with totals per month, but that's for
>> another day)
>
> That particular change is pretty straightforward. I'll see if I can
> get to it in the next couple of days. I can't promise as I'm in the
> middle of packing up to move my whole family out of state with the
> deadline rapidly descending...
>
> A

I didn't mean for you to go to any particular trouble on *my* account! I 
was merely trying to point out that making a "custom" report the way I 
want (just a table of account names and balances, preferably with 
totals, broken out by month - no charts, no accounts I haven't chosen 
[Income], no calculations I haven't asked for [Net Profit/Loss]) can't 
really be gotten by customizing an existing report. I either have to 
write something in guile, or live with what I can get. I chose option 
#2. :-)

If I were you, I'd go move the family and forget about me. :-)