[GNC] Nesting too deep for budget?

[Adrien Monteleone]

Nate,


First, the budget by default, I don’t think, shows any ‘cells’ like you would think of them in a spreadsheet. You can turn on faint grey lines here by going to Preferences > General > General and then checking off the two options to “Enable horizontal/vertical grid lines on table displays”. This may also show the grid lines in other places you may not want, so toggle as needed. Note also, you have to double-click where the cells are supposed to be to get the entry field. There is a way to tab/enter around the table, but it is quite cumbersome. It does not play nice like a spreadsheet app.

Second, the column order in the Budget module should be

Accounts
1st period
2nd period
...
Total

The dates of those periods are determined by how you set up the budget, which can be changed with the ‘Options’ toolbar button.

So the first column has account names.

The second and subsequent columns are for each period.

If you enter amounts in the child accounts, the parent cells will show the sum of those entries in a grey font.

You *could* enter amounts for the parents, but in this case you don’t want to.

Also, be aware that parent accounts (maybe only those set as placeholders, I don’t recall) Will show “0.00” in light grey font for any parts of the tree that don’t have entries yet. But the child accounts will have nothing there in the cell. The cell will be completely blank. And if you don’t have the grid lines turned on, that row will look like a blank, white (empty) row. But just double-click where you think the cell ought to be and you’ll get the entry field.

The Filter settings are not remembered. You have to reset them each time you open the Budget. I think there is a bug filed on this already.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Jan 31, 2020 w5d31, at 2:56 PM, Nate Bargmann <n0nb at n0nb.us> wrote:
> 
> * On 2020 09 Jan 01:53 -0600, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
>> This might be an ‘unused’ issue.
>> 
>> I presume since you’re getting started, none of those 26 accounts have any existing transactions, correct?
>> 
>> Go to:
>> 
>> View > Filter By > Other
>> 
>> and check off:
>> 
>> Show Unused Accounts
>> (optionally) Show Zero Total Accounts
>> (optionally) Show Hidden Accounts
>> 
>> You should now be able to budget for those accounts.
> 
> Circling back to this, I've tried this dialog and I still don't have a
> cell in the Budget tab that I can enter a value except for the parent of
> the subaccounts which is not useful for me.  The list of subaccounts
> does change when I check or uncheck Show unsued accounts or Show zero
> total accounts, but in no case does a cell appear in the second column
> from the right.
> 
> I deleted the prior budget attempts and started fresh.  I am using 3.8
> on Debian.
> 
> I am only interested in an expense budget so I only have the Expense
> Account Type checked in the Filter Budget dialog.  In the Other tab, of
> the three only Show hidden accounts is not checked.
> 
> My expense tree looks like this:
> 
> Expenses
> 	Dual Parish
> 		sub accounts...
> 	Home
> 		sub accounts...
> 
> Expenses, Dual Parish, and Home are marked as Placeholder accounts.  No
> matter whether any or all of these are Placeholders or not, there is
> only a cell to enter a budget amount in Dual Parish and Home.  No
> accounts below either provide a cell for entering a budgeted amount.
> 
> Curiously, beyond this, when I close and reopen the budget I get all of
> the top level accounts.
> 
> - Nate