[GNC] Another try at "How to record payments for several items paid with a single transaction?"

[Michael or Penny Novack]

I believe this is another case where "history" might be important. For 
people who know how bookkeeping worked in the days of pen and ink on 
paper obvious, but for those not familiar with that, what gnucash is 
doing (automating parts of that old process) less so.

In the "old days" there were two parts to the books, the journal and the 
ledger. The transaction was first entered in the journal, then posted to 
the various ledger accounts affected, but THOSE entries included a 
reference back to what page in the journal (so looking at a ledger 
entry, could find the journal entry to look at the whole transaction.

The journal entry had a date, then on a line each, the debit 
accounts/amounts, then the credit accounts/amounts (indented more) and 
finally a description of the transaction. That description could be as 
extensive/detailed as desired.

Each entry posted to the journal might have a short description, but if 
you wanted to see the full description you used the journal page 
reference to find that.

Since gnucash is "virtual journal" (you can run a report that will show 
you the effective journal) that would be less handy, so the full 
description entry goes into each ledger entry. In other words, we have 
"lost" the ability to MANUALLY place a mini description on each ledger 
entry that differs from the full description in the journal entry. But 
gnucash really had no choice sine we are usually NOT entering in journal 
mode and posting automatic (so no time to place a separate description 
onto each ledger entry as there was when posting was a manual process).

Michael D Novack



>> So, very simply, say I am buying sweets in a shop and I select:-
>>
>>      One bar of chocolate        0.99
>>      Two bags of pear drops      1.50
>>      Chewing gum                 1.00
>>
>> Then I pay the shopkeeper       3.49
>>
>>
>> I want to record this in GnuCash in a way that shows that it is a
>> single transaction debiting 'cash in my pocket' and crediting
>> 'shopkeeper' but I want to detail the items making up the transaction.
>>
>> How do I do this?
> Erm... 4 splits?  3 to Expenses:Sweets and one to CashInPocket.   then for the
> register, ensure View as... something not auto-expanding splits.
>
> Will truthfully say that I have not followed the thread so far.
>
> HTH,
> Maf.
>
>
>
>
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There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.