[GNC] Transcation Search & Replace

[Edward Doolittle]

I think there is also a general accounting philosophical issue (and in some
jurisdictions, potentially a legal issue) in cases like this. Changing
transactions is something that is discouraged in some accounting contexts.
When I first learned accounting in 1980 or so, I was taught never to erase
a mistake, but instead to cross it out and make a note of it. The gc
equivalent would be to create a "reversing transaction" for the incorrect
transaction, on the same date as the erroneous transaction, with an
appropriate note, and then add the corrected transaction. For those who
don't know, a reversing transaction is a mirror image of the original, with
all the debits changed to credits and vice versa. The net effect of any
transaction and its reversing transaction is null on all subaccounts.

On the other hand, since my books are for no one's use but my own, and
because I generally have only a few transactions to correct if I make a
mistake, I feel no need to follow the above advice. When I find I have made
mistakes or poor treatments, I go back and correct them, of necessity one
transaction at a time. However, the authors of gc have no idea how it might
be used; if it is important for someone to maintain books in a way that
does not permit changing transactions, then giving a way to bulk edit
transactions would be allowing users to shoot themselves in the foot. I
would say that such a feature is a low priority.

With all that said, here is a way to modify existing transactions in bulk:
1) Use the scheduled transaction editor to produce a set of reversing
transactions. You can set the scheduled transaction to start at the
appropriate time in the past, with the appropriate frequency, then close
the editor and go to "Since last run...". When you're finished, the
appropriate transactions should all be available in the book. 2) Use the
scheduled transaction editor to produce the set of correct transactions in
the same manner as the previous step. 3) (optional) Delete corresponding
pairs of incorrect transactions and their reversing transactions if you
don't like your book too cluttered, and if it's allowed by your accounting
rules. This part would have to be done manually, but should go faster than
manually entering transactions, particularly if there's a nice search key
that will only find the erroneous transactions and their corresponding
reversing transactions.

On Thu, 2 Jul 2020 at 14:40, Adrien Monteleone <
adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:

> The best and safest one has already been mentioned.
>
> 1. Conduct a ‘Find’ as appropriate to build a working list of transactions.
> 2. Trudge through them one by one making the desired changes.
>
> That sounds daunting, but it depends on the info being changed.
>
> If you just want to change the name of an account, then edit the account.
> (not the transactions)
>
> If you want to move *all* transactions from one account to another
> existing account, and leave *no* other transactions behind afterwards, then
> simply delete the undesired account. GnuCash will prompt you for where to
> move the transactions.
>
> If you only want to move *some* transactions from one account to another,
> then best to do a Find which will generate a Search Results tab. You’ll
> have to do them one-by-one, but as you re-assign them, they’ll disappear
> from the search results, and when it is empty, you are done. This can be
> quite tedious if you have hundreds or thousands of such transactions.
> However, with even a few dozen, the work isn’t too bad, and now that you
> can direct-search when entering an account, it will go much faster than
> with previous versions. (direct-search is available in 4.0)
>
> If you are changing Description/Notes, there’s no easy fix other than
> steps 1 & 2 above. And this time, you don’t get a reducing list. You’ll
> have to keep track of which ones are done or not.
>
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
>
>
> > On Jul 2, 2020 w27d184, at 2:57 PM, listsub3 <
> listsub3 at liberator-systems.co.uk> wrote:
> >
> > Typically bulk search replace changes would be for things like
> transaction category/account, changes in names in description/notes. etc.
> >
> > My GC data folder is currently 46mb (I have quite a lot of histrorical
> stuff).
> >
> > Seems like quite a functional omission in GC to me - it must be quite a
> common user task - I don't have an old Quicken on this machine but I know
> it used to be a breeze with that.
> >
> > Searching this list I found an an old response to the same question
> which indicated that this functionality would only be considered once GC
> had moved to a databese strcuture?
> >
> > What are the workaraounds?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > John
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>


-- 
Edward Doolittle
Associate Professor of Mathematics
First Nations University of Canada
1 First Nations Way, Regina SK S4S 7K2

« Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mécontents
et un ingrat. »
-- Louis XIV, dans Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. XXVI