[GNC] Your Classification / Tagging Implementation

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Fri Nov 13 10:33:19 EST 2020


Gal,

I use the first method and you've maybe come across threads here where I 
recommend it.

The biggest advantage is keeping the Chart of Accounts simple. Depending 
on your needs, creating new hierarchies can get unwieldy very quickly.

Method 1, also simplifies reporting. If you need a special report 
filtered to tags, you can get that, but otherwise, you don't have to do 
anything special for standard reports.

The downside to Method 1 (and current advantage to Method 2) is not 
every report has the filtering option necessary to utilize it fully. As 
far as I know, this is limited to the Transaction Report. Thus, you 
can't use Method 1 for Balance Sheets or Income Statements. These would 
be most useful in the case of evaluating performance of separate rental 
properties, or long-term job profitability.

Without implementing a separate feature just for additional dimensions 
of classification, adding the filtering option to the Income Statement 
and Balance Sheet (if not all reports) would allow users to tag as they 
see fit and craft needed reports with ease.

Regards,
Adrien

On 11/7/20 3:49 PM, Gal wrote:
> The most requested feature in gnucash is to have transaction classification,
> also known as tags / dimensions / categories / classes
> https://gnucash.uservoice.com/forums/101223-feature-request/suggestions/1543027-transaction-classifications
> 
> Say I spend 100€ at a restaurant during a vacation in Italy.
> The obvious transaction is a 100€ credit to checking account and 100€ debit
> to Expenses:Eating out
> But I would also like to be able to track the vacation expenses, so I have
> to classify all transactions took place during the vacation, for example
> with a #italy2020 tag.
> 
> Summarizing all discussions I've read, there are two common workarounds, or
> ways to manually implement classification in gnucash:
> 
> 1. By adding the tag #italy2020 to the description, note or memo field of
> the transaction.
> The transaction report can then filter transactions by the tag string.
> 
> 2. By creating an additional account, called italy2020, and change the
> transaction splits in the following way:
> Cr. Assets:Checking 100€
> Dr. Tags:italy2020 100€
> --
> Cr. Tags:italy2020 100€
> Dr. Expenses:Eating out 100€
> 
>   
> Those of you who implement such taggings, can you share your method, and why
> you prefer your method over the other?



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