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[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 10/2/2017 4:42 AM, Joseph Hesse wrote:
> Hi,
> I am using the latest version 2.6.17 of gnucash.  I just ran the 
> report "Expense Over Time = Expense Barchart" with the maximum number 
> of vertical bars selected. The report lists all my expense items 
> including one called "Other". Since the amount of "Other" is high, I 
> would like to get a breakdown of the expense items included under 
> "Other".
>
> Is there a way to do this?
>
> Thank you,
> Joe Hesse 

Yes of course there is, you set up your CoA for as many categories of 
expenses as you like.

Step back a moment and think about this problem. Suppose you had NO sub 
accounts under "expense" (all lumped together). You would then have this 
problem with ALL of your expenses. So you decided to have some number of 
sub accounts that let you characterize (group) like expenses and then a 
bucket "other" for those you choose not to categorize/group because 
totally unrelated and/or unimportant.

At some later time, you realize that a number of transactions in this 
"other" account ARE related* and so you want them grouped also. Then DO 
THAT. Create a new expense sub account for those and move them there << 
The technically correct procedure would be to create a "correcting 
transaction" to do that but you will perhaps choose to edit the existing 
transactions >>

When you create your books, you will be very unlikely to know all of the 
accounts you will eventually need or want.

Michael D Novack

* Or maybe just one, but clearly so important/significant to your 
finances that you want it clearly listed instead of buried in a 
miscellaneous category.