[GNC] difficulties with managing accounts with lots of split transactions

[Platon Pronko]

Hi!

I currently find it a bit difficult to handle multi-split transactions that include several "splits" going to the same account. For example, if I'm buying some computer hardware I want to record the prices of each part for later reference, but all those parts are recorded in "Hardware" account - thus several splits go into the same account.

In default "Basic Ledger" view this is shown in a confusing way - each split gets its own row, but each row displays the same transaction description (not the name of the individual part).

For the moment I explored several different solutions to this situation:

1. Record each item (hardware part in this example) as a separate transaction. This solves the issue with display since I can now put each item name into the description field. But now I have multiple transactions my credit card account, which would make reliable reconciliation almost impossible.

2. Use the "Transaction Journal" view. It handles this situation a bit better than "Basic Ledger" - the rows are not duplicated. But it show all the splits, even the ones not related to the currently viewed account, and the simple two-split transactions start taking 3 rows each, which is too verbose, especially since this is a global setting.

3. Show "memo" as a separate column in "Basic Ledger" view (I've attached the code patch that does it, applies to version 4.8). This works quite nicely - simple transactions keep using one row, complex transactions display only the splits related to the current register and each split shows its memo right in the register. However this is a code customization, won't help anybody else with similar problems, and maintaining it is going to be more difficult than built-in solutions.

Do you have any suggestions about a better way of handling this?

Best regards,
Platon Pronko
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