[GNC] Transaction Report - Split Transactions

[Vincent Dawans]

Unfortunately that is a limitation on how the splits work and I have run
into this myself.

When you look at it from the expense accounts, every transaction has a 3
way split because of the 2 owner accounts, so unfortunately there is no way
to group by owner account as the secondary sort
When you look at it the other way, selecting Owner A and B as the accounts
to report on, every transaction is still split because of the other owner
account, so there is no way to group by owner as primary then expense as
secondary. You can still get the correct total for each owner, but not the
subtotal by expense account.

It could be an interesting thing to try to change. When showing a split on
the credit side, and the multiple splits are ONLY on the credit side, then
we should be able to show the single debit side account name as the other
account instead of showing "split transaction"; same for the other way
around, When showing a split on the debit side, and the multiple splits are
ONLY on the debit side, then we should be able to show the single credit
side account name as other account instead of showing "split transaction";

I might look at changing this as it would help as well because I have
several reports where I have ran into this problem

The alternative is to only use simple transactions, which essentially means
splitting your transactions into 2. So instead of

Electricity 100
Owner A          60
Owner B         40

you end up with 2 transactions

Electricity 60
Owner A          60

Electricity 40
Owner B         40

But it's not really very nice

I have also an experimental report using tags but that would require
changing your setup as well. It would still require splitting the expenses
however, but both splits could be kept in the same transactions. Only
advantage is you could get rid of the owner accounts UNLESS they are actual
escrow accounts (instead of report placeholders while the actual payment is
done from a single asset account).
Checking account 100
Electricity                        60  #OwnerA in the split memo
Electricity                        40  #OwnerB in the split memo

Here it is if you want to give that a try:
https://github.com/dawansv/gnucash-transaction-tags

But ultimately allowing the single matching debit/credit side to show
instead of "split transactions" would be a more useful solution. I'll look
at whether I can get that done but it might take a little while.

On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 3:22 PM John Dimitriadis <droshps at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a Gnucash file, which I use to track expenses for a jointly owned
> property.
>
> Under Assets, I have two accounts. One for myself and one for the other
> owner.
>
> Under Expenses, I have the Property, and under that I have sub-accounts
> for the various types of expenses (eg. Taxes, Service Charges, Maintenance,
> Bills etc).
>
> A number of the expenses transactions have split entries. Either because
> something was paid by both owners, or because I keep more detailed records.
>
> I am trying to come up with a Transaction Report that will summarise:
> (a) Total Expenses
> (b) Breakdown of Expenses per sub-Account (i.e. type of expense)
> (c) How much was paid by each owner, of each type of expense
>
> The problem I am facing and have not managed to solve no matter what I
> have tried, is that for the Split Transactions, when Sorting with “Other
> Account”, I just get a groups for “Split Transaction”, and thus lose the
> transparency of the Sub-Account or if I structure the Transaction report
> differently, I lose the transparency/sum for the account from which the
> payment was made.
>
> Any help would be welcome.
>
> Thank you!
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