[GNC] Can a bank account have sub-accounts?

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 3/13/2023 10:35 AM, Mort Q wrote:
> Hi Robert
> I do have lots of expense accounts for repairs, catering, office expenses,
> utilities, etc, and income accounts for fund raising, donations,
> memberships, etc. so we can track income and expenses easily.  The GnuCash
> reports really help people see where money is coming from and going to.
> That's one of the reasons I was thinking of having the sub accounts - the
> bank reports will be like an overall report but with the underlying break
> down of fund allocation.  Does that make sense?
>
As noted, this will cost you the ability to use the "reconcile" feature.

But folks, I've been there and done that as treasurer of orgs. This is a 
trade off that might make sense. Keep in mind that such orgs might have 
a rather low monthly volume of transactions against the checking 
account. Reconciling the old fashioned way no big deal. When there were 
FORMALLY restricted funds would do that the right way, but for 
informally restricted funds, just partitioning the checking account 
makes for less work.

Another alternative (will let you  partially use the reconcile feature) 
is partition but only write checks against main (before writing the 
check for an expense qualified to use restricted, transfer the amount 
from that partition). The total balance amount according to the bank 
won't match the balance of the check writing partition but no bog deal 
to just add the remaining balances of the reserved partitions.

Note that an organization that DOES keep restricted funds in a separate 
bank account, unless these are LARGE restricted funds, will likely have 
only one "other" bank account for all the restricted funds and that 
would be partitioned.

Michael D Novack