export general ledger

[Jeff Abrahamson]

Thanks, Adrien.  In the end, as long as I can automate this, I'll be
happy.  (I haven't fully followed on on the python solution, but it sure
looks like it will work fine, so I've chalked it up as future work for
me rather than potential workflow blocking today.  Always good to have a
project over Christmas.)

Ultimately, it's a user experience issue, and I don't have any vision at
all of what gnucash users expect.  The accounting software I've used
previously was geared towards professional accountants, and some of the
features (like journal entry rather than account entry) I found really
convenient once I got used to them.  Faced with a pile of bills, for
example, it was great to be able to enter them all from their respective
a/p to their respective expense accounts without a single mouse click,
just a steady stream of typing bill numbers, descriptions, amounts, and
debit and credit account numbers.

Again, my perspective is keeping the books for a rowing club.  I'm sure
that matters in terms of what I find convenient or not.

Jeff


On 18/12/17 19:13, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> Jeff,
>
> If I recall correctly from other discussion, the General Ledger is not it’s own entity. It’s a ‘view’ of the separate account ledgers all rolled into one. This is probably why there is no export option for it.
>
> GnuCash takes the opposite approach from paper books.
>
> With paper, you enter everything in a General Journal and then later post the proper amounts to T-accounts.
>
> With GnuCash, you skip the Journal and enter directly to the accounts.
>
> The General Ledger was provided for the benefit of those who were used to the paper method and wanted the option to see all transactions in chronological order regardless of accounts used.
>
> But I don’t see why you can’t combine the files after the fact. That’s an easy concatenation command.
>
> It is curious that you can’t export ‘all’ transactions and have to choose only one hierarchy at a time.
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
>> On Dec 17, 2017, at 1:31 PM, Jeff Abrahamson <jeff at p27.eu> wrote:
>>
>> I'd like to export the general ledger to a csv file.  When I use File ->
>> Export, however, I'm offered a choice of exporting income, expenses,
>> assets, or liabilities.  But I'd like to have all transactions in the
>> csv file.
>>
>> I think I see how to do this using python (the example script
>> account_analysis.py in the examples is instructive).  But this seems so
>> basic I suspect I'm missing something.
>>
>> Many thanks for any pointers.
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Jeff Abrahamson
>> +33 6 24 40 01 57
>> +44 7920 594 255
>>
>> http://p27.eu/jeff/
>>
>>
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-- 

Jeff Abrahamson
+33 6 24 40 01 57
+44 7920 594 255

http://p27.eu/jeff/