[GNC] Household monthly reporting

[Adrien Monteleone]

I concur on this detail point.

Unless you retain physical receipts or scan them (important for most 
thermal paper receipts as they deteriorate) you lose all record of line 
item details if you don't record them in GnuCash.

I don't combine any line items when I enter receipts. Each one gets its 
own split, including tax. (because that would be too difficult and time 
wasting to try to pro-rate the tax amount to each line item, especially 
if there are differing rates per item)

After 15+ years of using GnuCash, I have several times revised my 
Account tree to better reflect how I'm tracking my money. I found out 
the first time it was impossible to break up splits I had combined when 
I didn't have enough detailed info to do so.

A simple example is that I don't combine 'groceries' all into one 
bucket. I wanted to know what 'type' of groceries my money was going to, 
so I separated 'prepackaged' and 'prepared' foods from 'raw 
ingredients'. A report on that alone, might astonish some. Reducing or 
cutting out the first two, shifting instead to 'raw' and cooking with 
meal planning has not only drastically lowered my food expenses, but 
improved my diet. (And yes, I separated 'alcohol' out too—eye opener!)

With auto-complete and auto-fill the tedious typing is quickly 
eliminated so the perceived extra work, really doesn't manifest.

You may never need a certain detail, but if you do, you'll be glad it is 
there. And if you record enough detail, you may find use for it at some 
point.

Regards,
Adrien

On 9/20/25 3:56 AM, Tom Route-36 wrote:

> When you enter transactions into your credit card account or checking 
> account are you ITEMIZING each transaction IN DETAIL?  For example, if I 
> have a credit card transaction for repairing a vehicle at a repair shop, 
> I will have MULTIPLE splits in the ONE transaction that I enter into my 
> credit card account.  And each of those splits will reference my 
> vehicle's Expenses:Auto:Repairs account.  One of the Repairs splits 
> might be the cost of replacing the washer pump. Another of the Repairs 
> splits might be for lubing the axles.  A third split might be for 
> replacing a drive belt.  All three of those splits are listed in that 
> one transaction in my credit card account.  But each of those three 
> splits are also now recorded against that Repairs account.
> 
> So if I go and look at my Expenses:Auto:Repairs account I'll see all 
> three splits there as well.  And if I want an itemized report of 
> everything I spent on my vehicle, I just go and print out a Cash Flow 
> report of my Expenses:Auto:Repairs account.  That will show every item 
> that I spent money on in detail.  The main point though is that you need 
> to record ALL that information in detail up front when you record that 
> single transaction in your credit card account.  Otherwise it won't be 
> there in detail when you go to look in your Repairs account later.