New account type

[Colin Law]

On 18 October 2013 08:23, Sam Liddicott <sam at liddicott.com> wrote:
> Background:
>
> My wife uses gnu-cash but is really frustrated because she has to switch to
> various accounts to enter expenses.

I am not sure I understand what you mean.  Could you give an example
of what she is doing that is frustrating?  Not too general an example
please, it is easy to misunderstand unless a detailed example is
given.

Colin

>
> She wants one screen from which to do this. The ^T transfer is not idea for
> multiple entry, and type-searching on the account selector only matches at
> the start of the word so a unique portion of the account name can't be used
> as a quick match.
>
> The closest I could get to what she actually wanted was to create a
> general-ledger account where she has to enter two rows per income or
> expense.
>
> On one row she records the expense name, the source of the money and
> amount. This creates a corresponding entry in the bank account or credit
> card with the transfer column set to "General-Ledger"
> On the next row she records the expense category and same amount which
> becomes an entry in that expense account with the transfer column also set
> to "General-Ledger". Setting the transfer columns in each account to
> "General ledger" is loss of information on those views.
>
> Proposal:
>
> What she would prefer is for the general ledger two have two transfer
> columns and a single amount column (and no balance - which would be zero).
>
> Then she doesn't have to enter the same expense on 2 rows, it just becomes
> a transfer account with two transfers on 1 row.
>
> And then in the corresponding source/dest accounts of the transfer, rather
> than just list "General-Ledger" in the transfer column it should take the
> entry from the General-Ledger transfer column and become
> "General-Ledger(Expenses::Entertainment::Food)" and
> "General-Ledger(Liabilities::Credit-Card)"
>
> Of course there could be more than one general ledger account, maybe they
> could be named after who did the spending
>
> Such an account type with it's slightly different view would add
> convenience as well as a new level of meta-data (person or purpose of
> spending) as well as source of money and category of spending currently
> employed.
>
>
> I realise that if this is not possible in a simple way, that discussion
> should move over to the -dev list.
>
> Sam
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