[GNC] Transaction Report - Split Transactions

[John Dimitriadis]

Hello Vincent,

Thank you very much for the detailed and quick response!

Splitting the transaction into two separate ones is something I thought of as well, however I concluded that I rather not have perfect reports but  have my transactions properly organised. 

The tags report is something I came across while looking for a solution, but as you say it is still not ideal. However I am considering it, as at the moment I use some “dimension accounts” which I add into splits with zero credit/debit and use as references when I want to create a report on projects, to gather related expenses from different accounts. So I might be using the tags instead going forward.

If you manage to make any changes that will resolve the reporting assuming that splits are only on either Debit or Credit side, then that would be great! Otherwise I am sure we will be just fine ! :)

Thank you once again!

> On 18 May 2023, at 02:27, Vincent Dawans <dawansv at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The last one should show this for proper credit/debi sides
> 
> Checking account                  100
> Electricity                   60                                   #OwnerA in the split memo
> Electricity                   40                                   #OwnerB in the split memo
> 
> On Wed, May 17, 2023 at 4:26 PM Vincent Dawans <dawansv at gmail.com <mailto:dawansv at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 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 <mailto: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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