[GNC] totals for a parent account and all its children

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> It would be very helpful if (and maybe there already is) there was a 
> place that would say what would be the usual or common options for the 
> reports.  For example, I think the transaction report should include 
> all the expense accounts.
>
> Just a bit of guidance would be incredibly helpful.
>
> I'm sure that there are other reports that would be helpful, but I 
> don't know if I should select everything, or just the asset accounts, 
> or the income accounts, or.... (and so on).

Misunderstanding. Gnucash is a TOOL for partially automating double 
entry bookkeeping. In terms of how such systems are called, "general 
ledger"

Take ANY Tool, say a hammer. The manual for a hammer might tell you what 
it is for (drive nails) and how to properly use it (grip, etc.). Out of 
scope for the hammer manual to teach you "what is a nail used for?" "why 
would I want to use a nail" etc.

What you are needing is something along the lines of "what is double 
entry bookkeeping?" describing things like what are the usual reports, 
how are they formatted, etc. Things that  are NOT specific to gnucash. 
In other words, if we are talking about a report such as "Profit and 
Loss", what it looks like, what's included in it, etc. that is 
independent of how the double entry "general ledger" is kept. Thus the 
report ends up looking the same (same data in it) whether produced by 
gnucash or manually during the process of "closing the books" the books 
being pen and ink on paper (as it was when I learned ~65 years ago).

Sorry, gnucash makes the work of double entry bookkeeping easier, but 
you still have to learn about double entry bookkeeping.

Michael D Novack