Re: [GNC] Account tree

See the recent thread about 'tracking expenses for trips', the same 
advice applies to your use case. (and parts of that it seems were 
already offered in this thread)

I'd keep my Tree clean, keep my Descriptions clean (I use them as 
payee/payor like the old paper checkbook register days), and put in my 
own 'tags' in the Notes or Memo fields. Then I'd run 2 Transaction 
Reports filtering on my desired tags, one for related revenue, the other 
for expenses, exporting both to a file, importing into a spreadsheet, 
and making a pretty P&L for that 'Job' as desired.

That might sound like lots of work for a report, but I'll hazard it is 
less than trying to maintain a custom and cluttered Tree.

As for 'open and portable' you could maintain that external spreadsheet 
in an open format which is usable in either LibreOffice and related or 
Google Sheets. Optionally, just print a final pretty copy to PDF. Either 
can be made available with the GnuCash data file, and even stored in the 
same directory if you like.

Regards,
Adrien

p.s. - I have vague recollection someone built a tagging system or 
reporting via the python bindings, but I don't recall who or what the 
thread name. Searching the archives should turn up that discussion. It 
should be in the last 3 years or so, but hey, time flies...

On 7/25/26 11:36 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
[email protected]
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.