Saving Report Formats

[Ian Konen]

On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Cat P <barking at gmx.com> wrote:

> I think we were talking about saving reports, not just running them.
>
>
You're right, I misread the original question (somewhat thrown off by the
mention of new transactions not showing in the report, but presumably the
real issue is/was the date range and not a failure to re-run the report).

The fact remains that, after editing any option, one has to rename and
> add the report in order to save changes applied (for future retrieval
> with those changes). Of course dynamic fields such as 'today' will
> update automatically.


> I have several custom reports which I sometimes modify to include new
> accounts or make other changes, and at the moment there is no way round
> renaming and adding.
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>

Ah, no I hadn't noticed that.  I haven't been using custom reports long
enough to want to overwrite a previous version, but now that you mention
it, it does seem like a reasonable feature to expect.  It's not the worst
omission...I guess the assumption is you'll eventually be satisfied with
report tweaks and eventually not need to change options with any regularity.

As for not updating to include new accounts, that strikes me as creating a
difficult to resolve ambiguity IF you've already edited the accounts list
from the original report.  It looks like GnuCash stores your account
selection by recording each individual account that was included, not that
you, for example, edited the selection of liability accounts but still want
to include all assets.  A new account just won't be in that list, and even
if you tried to program some kind of automatic addendum, the logic of
determining whether the user would want the new account inserted into that
list would be difficult, given the accounts selection has already been
changed from default.

It also appears options (including the accounts list) are only stored in
the saved custom report IF you make any changes to them.  So if the built
in version of a report normally includes all assets, it will include all
assets new and old.  If you haven't changed the accounts list in the
options dialog, your custom report will continue add new accounts when
they're created (if appropriate based on the original report template).

(Sorry if you knew all this...I'm kind of thinking out loud here)


>
> Cat
>
>
>
> On 26/07/2013 17:26, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> >
> >> Cat, I think your answer was spot on...I don't think Wes was trying to
> >> change a built in report as much as he just wants to not have to make
> the
> >> same changes to the same options each time he runs it.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>>> saved report is static (i.e., if I add transactions then run the saved
> >>>> report, it retrieves the data from the time I created the report;
> >>>> not the
> >>>> current data).  Is there a way to save the report so that it reports
> >>>>
> >>> current
> >>>
> >>>> data?  Thank you, Wes
> >>>>
> >>>>
> > Maybe making this harder than it is?
> >
> > OK, let's say that you bring up the report again and it is just what you
> > want (all the other options still the same) except of course that date
> > range is wrong because it's still what it was the last time. You don't
> > have to re-enter everything (all the options yo have for this report).
> > Simply Edit => Options and go to the sub page where you get to set
> > dates, change the date range, and apply that change. Gnucash will then
> > redo the report (bringing in transactions for the new time period).
> >
> > I do this all the time. I am usually running reports quarterly but not
> > in real time. In other words, I am running some days after the end of
> > the quarter when all activity for that quarter has been entered. Now
> > what I run (to be able to present a "treasurer's report" to the board is
> > a Revenue Statement (Income Statement) for start of year to end of
> > quarter and a Balance Sheet for end of quarter. Lot's of options
> > specified (nesting levels, how subtotals shown, etc.). Naturally when I
> > bring up the reports I ran for the last quarter the dates are wrong. But
> > I just change those and presto, new reports done.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > PS: If what you were doing was using "current date" this will STILL
> > work. Simply change ANY option (say nesting level) and then change it
> > back and th new "current date" will be used.
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-- 
Ian Konen
iankonen at gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/iankonen
978-821-6498