[GNC] Changing the order of splits

[Michael Hendry]

On 29 Jul 2021, at 11:53, David Sumbler <david at aeolia.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> I have a set of accounts in which some transactions have a considerable
> number of splits, each one relating to an individual person.  All of
> these splits have the same amount in the debit column, but the number
> of splits in each of these transactions varies.
> 
> When I need to add a new transaction of this type, I duplicate an
> earlier one.  I then edit the new one, editing and adding/removing
> splits as needed.
> 
> The trouble with this is that the order of the Account names in the
> splits ends up rather confused.  However, I can't find any way of re-
> ordering them, which seems strange.  After all, some people might want
> the Accounts to be in, say, alphabetical order.  That is not my
> requirement, but I would like some particular Accounts to appear
> vertically adjacent to each other.
> 
> My question is, is there any way at all of moving splits up or down
> within the list?
> 
> David

As treasurer of my Rotary Club I have a couple of similar problems to resolve.

1. Annual Subscriptions fall due on 1st July.

2. Members (and non-members) make donations during the year - mostly via various events the club runs - and I have to keep a track of these for Gift Aid purposes. The nominated destinations of these funds have to be recorded and reported on too.

1. Is relatively straightforward to manage, and has the bonus of keeping track of who hasn’t yet paid within Gnucash.

On the first of July I created a payment of £0 from each member into our current bank account from our Members’ Subscriptions Income Account, with a member’s name in the Description field in Surname, Forename format.

I then set up a Transaction Report for the Members’ Subscriptions Account, with a date range 1st June 2021 to 30th June 2022 (because there’s always someone who makes an early payment by online banking) sorted by date (primary key) and name (secondary key).

As the subs were paid, I edited each member’s transaction to correct the date and amount paid. Reloading the transaction report now brings up a list highlighting those who haven’t yet paid in the 1st July slot


2. Is more complex because I have to keep track of various categories of income. Income:Donations:GA (for Gift Aid) is the parent, with various children (Whisky Tasting, Foundation, Quiz, Water Account). I also chose to use the Memo field to record the donor’s name, with the source event in the Description field. This facilitates anonymous reporting to the club as opposed to the claim to HMRC for Gift Aid, which obviously requires the donors’ details.

In this case the primary key is the Memo field and the secondary is by register order.


I don’t think I’ve got any transactions with additional splits, but I believe these should be reported correctly by the above Transaction Report method.

I’m not sure how your payments arise - if you’re receiving a fixed sum each month from a variable (but finite) number of individuals, it might be worth setting up a Scheduled transaction for all and deleting the unnecessary ones.

Hope this helps, and happy to correspond off-list if that helps

Michael