[GNC] Gnucash account reporting

[Stan Brown (using GC 4.14)]

Hello, Ronald!

You can change account names on the Accounts panel, which should open
automatically every time you open a data file (set of books).

Click on the account name that you want to change, then click the Edit
button at the top of the GC window and change the account name. Repeat
for all the account names you want to change.

You don't need to do anything to the transactions in those accounts; GC
will automatically adjust the account names in every split.  (Actually
this is all done with pointers, so neither you nor GC actually need to
rewrite any transactions.) Even scheduled transactions will
automatically pick up the new account names, and so will any report
configurations you have saved.

One final note: If you are thinking about renaming accounts purely as a
way of ordering them in reports, that's actually not necessary. Simply
click the down arrow at the far right of the headings row, then check
(tick) Account Code. This gives you a new Account Code column in the
Accounts pane, and accounts are then shown in Account Code order in the
Accounts pane and in reports. (They're not shown, alas, in the account
picker when entering transactions. However, when entering a transaction
you can enter the Account Code rather than the Account Name, which can
save time with accounts you use frequently.)
        The choice of account codes is up to you, but many prefer a
hierarchical approach. The top Assets account is 1000, top Liabilities
is 2000, top Equity (Net Worth) is 3000, Income 4000, Expenses 5000.
Second-level accounts would be coded in even hundreds, third-level
accounts in even tens, and fourth-level accounts in units. If you have
more or fewer levels than four, you can modify the above scheme to your
liking. The scheme above is just a common choice, but you could use any
scheme of account codes that you wish.

Stan Brown
Tehachapi, CA, USA
https://BrownMath.com

On 2025-04-23 17:39, Ronald Solomon wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I have been using Gnucash for a while and I have notice I was not always
> consistent when naming accounts like under expenses and I would like to see
> if I could clean those up for better reporting. How would be the best way
> to clean up my mess. any help is appreciated