[GNC] The meaning of Running Balance in Transaction Report: bug or enhancement request?

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Wed Oct 26 20:24:14 EDT 2022


It could just be that you're providing a simplified example, but in that 
screenshot I noticed every single line had the Checking Account as the 
'Transfer' account. (other account)

Why not just run the report on the Checking Account only?

It would then give you a running balance that makes sense.

And if you choose Primary Sort as 'Other Account Name' you'll get a 
report that first shows everything from the Checking Account with a 
running balance, then a repeat of each transaction but grouped by each 
'other' account with their own totals. (and Running Balances!)

*that first set of transactions will likely show up as 'split 
transaction' as the 'other account'. I'm not sure how to suppress that 
section. (or maybe you want to keep it as it does show the info by date 
order - it is like two reports in one)

If you just want a list of transactions that affected say, the Checking 
Account, then simply run the report for that account only. You don't 
need to guess and/or select all other possible affected accounts.

-----

As a test, I did a report choosing only Expense accounts. (all of them)

I set the sort order Primary Key to 'Account Name'.

That resulted in a report of each Expense account showing me a balance 
forward, followed by a correct running balance with each transaction, 
along with a total for that account for the duration of the report. 
Note, the running balance in this case was per account, because I had 
sorted that way.

-----

If you're looking for a report where the source of funds may be multiple 
accounts, and the destination multiple accounts, and you want to see 
say, a running balance of expenses, I'm not sure that can be done. But 
I'm up to the challenge. I'll see if I can make it work and report back.

As you've noted, the work around is to get as close as you can and then 
export to a spreadsheet to add that formula, for now...

Regards,
Adrien

On 10/26/22 4:23 PM, Vincent Dawans wrote:
> Thank you Adrien. I would expect a running balance starting with the first
> transaction amount and ending with the last transaction as sorted. As if
> you were putting a list of transactions in Excel and simply creating a
> running balance by adding the previous line's running balance+current line.
> In fact right now that's what I do as a workaround and it works fine, so
> it's not even a big problem, just one thing I have been thinking about how
> to fix best. See attached "TR sorted by date with expected running
> balance.png" where I have added an example in red.
> 
> I agree it might possibly be an odd case, essentially needed when combining
> a series of transactions from several accounts filtered in various ways.
> But that is sort of the point of the transaction report. It is pretty
> flexible in that way, combining all sorts of transactions from various
> places, with the filtering not only by accounts but all sorts of things, in
> fact there is an entire filter section in the settings, you can even use
> regular expressions, etc.
> 
> As far as implementation, yes it might not be trivial based on how the
> report engine is designed since essentially this is data calculated within
> the report, not available outside of it. But I don't know enough to judge
> on how difficult it would be to implement. From a UI perspective, making
> sure the users don't get both concepts mixed up is another challenge for
> sure, so as you say it may even be less clear
> when chosen as an option.



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