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

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> It would be really great if I could define reports INCLUDING a permanent
> "select children" designation for a top level account.
THAT is what I called a "binding error" (what was saved was not the 
"include children" but the result of applying "include children")

> P.S.: Yes, I know there are OTHER ways to record the books without creating
> a separate account for each person, but after a few experiments a few years
> ago, I chose that strategy.

You made TWO choices. One choice was to have an account for each donor. 
The second was to include this in the main set of books. Could have a 
subsidiary "donations book". Much as it used to be common to have 
various subsidiary books like "petty cash", "cashbook"*, etc. Point is, 
you then would not need to be selecting accounts if you wanted a report 
on donations (in detail)

Michael D Novack

(*) What gnucash is doing IS like "cashbook" accounting with the 
cashbook extended to the entire ledger (infinitely wide ledger page) and 
lifting the restriction that one account be "cash". In other words, we 
skip "journal entry" (unless more than two accounts involved). But only 
us old fogies who learned in pen and ink on paper would identify it that 
way.

PS: An alternative to account selection/exclusion is not to do this 
within gnucash but instead export and then edit out the parts you don't 
want. When I did accounting for organizations I did it that way because 
then the same gnucash report could result in multiple reports (for 
different purposes) depending on what was included or discarded. The BoD 
wants one level of detail, seeing what 1099's might be needed, another, 
"printing and postage costs" another, etc.