How to Modify gnuCash Reports

[Chris Good]

> On 27 Sep 2015, at 11:42 pm, Michele Hemmings <exclusivelystrata at iinet.net.au> wrote:
> 
> Hello Chris
> 
> First, I want to congratulate you and your team for producing gnuCash software.
> From my 10+ hours playing around with it, I find it quite good with excellent Help guide and a lot of reports for small business.  There are two things that I would like to ask for help with:
> 
> 1. Reports - moving accounts around rather than just in Alpha order,

You can specify an account code for each account name and I think most reports allow you to
sort on that.

>                  - changing subheadings eg Revenue and Expenses (when it is called Statement of Income & Expenditures)

I don't think you can do that without modifying the report but that probably isn't too hard - find the .scm file (I think) and give it a go.

>                  - allowing for two types of income for the business eg ' primary' profits and 'extraordinary' profits.  That is standard financial reporting in most countries.

You can have as many different income accounts as you need - create them as sub accounts under 'Income'. I'm not an accountant and cannot remember if profit is an Income account...
I think you may need to provide more info in order for other people to help.
 
> 2. Importing customers from .xls or .csv files and not just Quicken books files.
I think you can do this but I don't know how.

> and another which is more of a comment for improvement:
> 3. The pull down menu 'Business' is an unusual term for what it contains, while ' Actions' implies to the first time user of entering Sales, Purchasing goods (not to be confused with 'stocks or shares'), but your Actions button is none of those things.
> Why not call "Actions" >> "SET UP"?
> Your 'Actions' is primarily about shares/Stocks yet it is where the user adds New Accounts or sets Budgets.
> I think the latter two activities are 'SET UP' things. Just as is Adding Customers, Adding Suppliers/Creditors.
> PS> the term 'Vendors' must be USA-specific as other countries usually reserved that word for sellers of real estate, not goods to be resold as in a shop.  We call a Supplier of goods, just that: Supplier or if we buy on credit, a Creditor.

Interesting thoughts...
That's how it is currently. Once you've done it a few times it won't be a problem, but patches always welcome. If you cannot program, and this is important to you, then raise it as an enhancement request GnuCash bug. See the FAQ http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ

> 4. what does 'gnu' stand for?

> From memory: Gnu's not Unix. Try google - too much history for me to go into.



> 
> If I cannot make the reports suit an entity with two different sources of revenue as above, then I won't be able to use your system, unfortunately.
> 
> Looking forward to hearing from you.
> 
> Michele Hemmings CPA
> Australia

Hi Michele,

Welcome to GnuCash.
I've answered as I can above.

I'm forwarding your email to the GnuCash user email group as questions like this should go to them as
1. There are many more knowledgeable people than me who may be able to help you
2. Other people will learn from answers to your questions
3. You will probably get more timely answers from the group than me.

If you're not already a member of the email group, you can subscribe at http://www.gnucash.org by clicking on the Mailing Lists link.

Regards,

Chris Good