[GNC] Account tree

[Tom Route36]

David,

Actually, the big advantage of creating a Tags account (just one) is 
that *no* sub-accounts are needed.  If you add a Tags account entry into 
the split of any transaction anywhere, you can type anything you want 
into that entry's Memo field -- #July-Meeting, #November-Meeting, 
#Tijuana-Vacation, ... whatever.  Whatever text you type into the Tags 
split entry for that transaction means you can run a Transaction Report 
later and filter for any tag that you might have put in that Memo field.

Also, let's say you have multiple credit card accounts involved in the 
meetings; but maybe you don't recall which credit card accounts were 
used.  When you run the Transaction Report for your specified tag (the 
Tag split memo field) you don't need to know or care what other accounts 
might have been involved in the transaction.  You just run the report 
against that one Tags account and filter it for the tag you want.

Like I said before, it's not very elegant; but it's simple ... and it 
does the job.

Tom



On 07/27/2026 10:21 PM, David T. wrote:
> ... Or you could just put your tag into the split line memo field 
> directly, without creating the Tags account.
>
> If I were going down this approach (not saying I would), I'd probably 
> create subaccounts for each tag I wanted, and then simply add the 
> empty split for the specific tag: Tags:July Meeting
>
> Then, a number of reports can be run filtering on that account. I 
> haven't tested this in any way, but believe it might work.
>
> David T.
>
>
> On July 28, 2026 7:09:14 AM GMT+05:30, Tom Route36 
> <tom.route36 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>     Hi Clint, I was looking back thru this email chain; and I noticed
>     that earlier you were saying that what you were really hoping for
>     was that GnuCash had the ability to do tagging.  Well, it kinda
>     does -- although not officially, and not in a very straightforward
>     manner. I personally don't have a need to do this on a regular
>     basis; but if you're looking for a way to tag transactions with
>     some sort of free-form tag names, this might work for you. Create
>     a new asset account, and name it Tags.  When you want to tag a
>     transaction, say a meeting room that was paid for with a credit
>     card, add a split entry to that transaction.  The split you add
>     will be a zero-amount; but what it does is it gives you a
>     dedicated Memo field.  In that Memo field for the Tags account,
>     you can now type in your tag -- e.g., #July-Meeting.  If you add a
>     similar split entry for every transaction related to the July
>     Meeting, you can then run a Transaction Report that only includes
>     the Tags account, and that you can filter for only those
>     transactions that include the tag #July-Meeting. It's not a very
>     elegant solution; but it might help get you that tagging feature
>     that GnuCash lacks.  Hope this helps a little. Tom On 07/25/2026
>     10:36 AM, Clint Chaplin wrote:
>
>         Why? tl;dr: to implement the missing ability to have "job
>         costing"/"tagging". Longer explanation: I keep the books for a
>         group that has three meetings a year, in March, July, and
>         November. Everything is focused on those three meetings, and
>         very little happens (financially) outside of those meetings.
>         At one point we had the ability to keep finances on a system
>         that implemented tagging, and it was glorious! Unfortunately,
>         the parent organization changed finance software several times
>         since then, and none of the replacements have tagging. Each
>         meeting has income (meetings fees, primarily), and expenses
>         (F&B, AV, meeting rooms, etc). I'm keeping the finances in a
>         rather elaborate spreadsheet that goes back to 2011 that we've
>         sorta agreed will be our source of truth, but we want to
>         switch to something more open and portable. I was hoping that
>         with Gnucash I could use an account tree that started with the
>         year, then the meeting, then the associated income and
>         expenses, to sorta implement tagging. But it is not to be.
>         Beancount is an option that has been suggested that actually
>         has tagging, but I have other issues with its philosophy. 
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user at gnucash.org To update your
>     subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>     https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>     ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do
>     this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>