[GNC] Issue with reports when handling multiple account files...

[Tommy Trussell]

On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 1:47 PM Jim DeLaHunt <list+gnucash at jdlh.com> wrote:

> Maybe someone else uses multiple books and reports, and can comment from
> their experience.
>

I can confirm that saved reports are only guaranteed to function properly
for one particular book file.*(with a notable exception) I  have nine book
files I could conceivably switch between (though fortunately for me,
several of the entities are inactive nowadays).

You can use a custom report for only one particular set of books AND the
saved reports are not stored with your data file, so it's also inconvenient
to attempt to use them on more than one computer.

I have one particular nonprofit book file that I created a LOT (at least a
dozen) custom reports for, and (partly happenstance and partly to keep
myself sane) I only run the reports on a particular computer, even though
the data file is stored on Dropbox. I could have alternatively created a
separate login account on my main computer to achieve the same effect.

*I imagine SOME of my custom reports would likely work just fine among
multiple books. For example several of my custom reports use standard
reports with the choice saved of "beginning of previous month" and "end of
previous month". So I imagine my saved "Income Statement Last Month" would
PROBABLY work just fine on ANY GnuCash Book. However, any custom reports
where I select particular accounts will almost certainly NOT run properly
elsewhere.

BY THE WAY, It would sure be handy if the custom report mechanism had a way
to designate "select child accounts" without me having to inspect and then
select them and re-save the custom report every time I add a new child
account.

> Is there a way to have them separate (i.e. reports per accounting file)?
> These sort of requests are tracked in the GnuCash bug database, and our
> volunteer developers get to them when they have time and interest. This
> request is already in there. See Bug 797124 - /Request for Enhancement:
> Preferences and Saved Reports should be per-book not per-user/[3]/./
>
> [1] <https://gnucash.org/viewdoc.phtml?rev=5&lang=C&doc=help>
> [2] <https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Configuration_Locations>
> [3] <https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797124>
>
>
I'm just noting that on my linux system I run GnuCash from a Flatpak, so
following the link in the Wiki I note that my reports are saved in

$HOME/.var.app/org.gnucash.GnuCash/data/gnucash/saved-reports-2.8

When I look in there I see multiple old reports files (because I've been
using GnuCash for a few years and through multiple revisions, (plus GnuCash
apparently makes a backup of the saved report file).

I also note that I have the flatpak symlink to the same directory the data
gets stored for a non-flatpak install (because when I switched to flatpak I
thought I might sometimes switch back and forth).

Enhancement suggestion:

As I am nearing the end of my term as treasurer for the nonprofit, I will
be looking for a way to pass on my custom reports to the next treasurer. I
was imagining how useful it might be to have a special file that could
unload / load my custom reports when switching to a particular book file.
Maybe name it bookname.gnucash.reports or bookname.reports.gnucash


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