New account type

[Michael Hendry]

On 18 Oct 2013, at 13:22, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:

> On Fri 18 October 13 13:07:11 Sam Liddicott wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Is the general ledger you speak of the general ledger report? I didn't know
>> about it today.
>> When I said "general-ledger" not in reference to anything that existed it
>> just seemed a suitable name.
>> 
>> I'm interested in where you found this general ledger you looked at...
> 
> Tools -> General Ledger

Although the General Ledger appears in GC as a Report, it is possible to edit the transactions that are presented in that report, and to add new transactions as if they were being entered through a traditional pencil-and-paper General Ledger.  The difference from the paper version, of course, is that transactions entered through the General Ledger in GC are automatically posted to the appropriate accounts.

I don't think the General Ledger was intended to be used in this way, but if this suits your wife's way of working, why not?

Michael

> 
>> 
>>>> Of course there could be more than one general ledger account, maybe
>>>> they could be named after who did the spending
>>> 
>>> I can't sort this out conceptually. First you propose an all purpose
>>> one line ledger to avoid using account tabs, and then you propose
>>> multiple general ledger accounts?
>>> 
>>> Perhaps you could explain some more?
>> 
>> I was proposing a new type of account with a slightly different view. I
>> called this type of account general-ledger. Maybe it was a bad name.
>> As a type of account there can of course me more than once instance of it.
>> 
>> Maf. King made reference to split transactions and I just had a look and
>> found that I could make a split transaction along those lines but it was a
>> very cumbersome process to get right and so perhaps Maf. king is right and
>> I am just looking for an alternate account view when splits are expanded to
>> multiple columns.
> 
> But in general, transactions put different splits in rows, so for example, a 
> cheque written to the department store may well split
> Bank: £100
> Expenses:Clothes: £50
> Expenses:Food: £20
> Expenses:Toys: £30
> 
> And that is more or less how it will loon in GC, not withstanding that it is 
> nicely columnar, unlike plain-text email....
> 
> Maybe your wife would prefer double line and/or auto-split view mode for the 
> registers? (see the View menu)
> 
> It seems to me that in any given data entry session, most of my transactions 
> affect 3 or 4 "source" accounts (eg bank, credit card 1, credit card2), and so 
> by entering in those one account at a time, I don't have to switch around 
> between lots of expense accounts.  Of course, I can't speak for your account 
> structure as everyone's needs are their own!
> 
> 0.02
> Maf.
> 
> 
>> 
>> Sam
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