New account type

[John G Sullivan]

The process which your wife is using seems backwards. Why not start 
from where the money originates. If she paid out of pocket, just use 
cash as the base account, and enter the expense as the account field. If 
paid from checking, start there.

John Sullivan

On Friday 18 October 2013 03:23:59 Sam Liddicott wrote:
> Background:
> 
> My wife uses gnu-cash but is really frustrated because she has to 
switch to
> various accounts to enter expenses.
> 
> 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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