Account Codes

[Yawar Amin]

Hi,

On 2012-04-12, at 10:57, Colin Scott wrote:

>> […]
> 
> As I've said before, if you want a "unique_account_code", there is already one there should you choose to use it.  The separate "account_code" field we are given is available for you to use (or not) as you choose.  Different users have different needs!  :-)

OK, sorry, I must have missed that, when you say ‘unique’ account code, are you talking about the internal account GUID as maintained by GnuCash?

> My use for the account_code field is as a shorthand for my frequently used account names when entering transactions.

Same here.

> However, I only have a sparse list of such codes - I simply couldn't remember a full list, and for the remaining accounts I simply pick them from the list.

Same here, but to help the memory I just make the account codes abbreviations of the full account path and name, with a ‘0’ (any number can be used) in the beginning, so ‘Expenses:Food:Groceries’ becomes 0efg.

> If uniqueness were enforced then blank codes would be considered duplicates and thus outlawed, and being obliged to use a full list would completely undermine its usefulness for me!

OK, that’s a good point. One way to get around that would be for GnuCash itself to auto-generate and put in a random (or numerically increasing) account code whenever an account is created, and of course the user can then change it whenever they like. But of course this would require an internal change to GnuCash.

> […]
> 
>> For that matter, I don_t think any reports show account codes 
>> either, even if we use them.
> 
> Most of the reports I have seen have an option to show the account code.

Ah, I’m happy to be wrong about this :-)

Regards,

Yawar