Similarly, my Living Revocable Trust is a single savings account at the credit Union.  In GnC it is a placeholder account with the following sub-accounts:
    Sinking Fund
    Emergency Fund
    General Fund

Likewise, the non-trust account is a checking account that has two sub-accounts:
    HamFlags
    Personal

Keeping the "business" out of my personal activity just makes it easier to track.

I reconcile the two top accounts (separately) then check the "Include sub-accounts" so it is easy to check off all the items shown on the bank site.

Now, I am comfortable right clicking on the placeholder account and picking reconcile.  But I understand that some may want the button active in this situation.

--Steve

On 10/11/22 16:04, Robin Chattopadhyay wrote:
I strongly -- but respectfully -- disagree.

Gnucash works *brilliantly* for a sub-accounting use case with a single
bank account at a financial institution comprised of multiple sub-accounts.

For example, until my children were old enough/mature enough to have their
own savings accounts at our bank, I held all of their individual savings,
plus my own in a single account at the bank to take advantage of higher
interest rates for higher balances.

Like this:
Savings Account 1234 (Placeholder because I didn't want transactions
accidentally ending up here. Everything needs to be in a sub-account for my
own piece of mind)
--> Main Savings
--> Child A Savings
--> Child B Savings
--> Child C Savings
--> Vacation
--> Capital Improvement
--> etc. (other special purpose accounts)

I can always immediately tell, within Gnucash, what is due each child or
what their available balance is.

When reconciling to the bank statement, I can select the representation of
the bank account (Savings Account 1234), then click Actions -> Reconcile,
enter the ending balance from the statement, click Include sub-accounts,
and away I go. The reconcile window allows me to select any unreconciled
transaction from any of the sub-accounts and reconcile back to the
statement balance. Internal transfers between sub-accounts are not on the
bank statement, obviously, but can also be reconciled in the Reconcile
window as they will definitionally net to 0.00.

I can also allocate interest amongst the various sub-accounts with a single
credit to an Interest Income account and a debit to each sub-account.

The only place where this system breaks down is importing an OFX file as
the transaction importer doesn't understand matching transactions to sub
accounts. For me, this is a small, small price to pay for all the other
advantages I cited above.

I also employ this system for credit cards where certain transactions are
subject to a promotional interest rate, or I want to keep vacation
transactions separate. A single payment to the credit card issuer can be
allocated to each sub-account. Balances can be compared to the promotional
balances on the statement.

Robin

On Tue, Oct 11, 2022 at 9:11 AM John Layman <john.lay...@laymanandlayman.com>
wrote:

Reconcile appears in the menu, but it will not open a reconciliation of
the subordinates, and (presumably) the placeholder account itself is
empty.  You can expand the subordinates, but will not be able to reconcile
the expansion.

What you are attempting to do is understandable, but difficult from a data
modelling standpoint.  The constituent parts of a data structure have
semantics.  In your particular case: that of a checking account.  But you
are attempting to superimpose a breakdown of its contents that represent
different semantics.  These semantics clash somewhat with the semantics of
'checking account' and the related function of reconciliation required with
a bank statement.  So, while what you are attempting to accomplish is
understandable, the collision of semantics is difficult to harmonize.

There was recent mention of envelope budgeting here. Trying to implement
an envelope budgeting scheme by using sub-accounts to a single checking
account might be doable, but it would be a kluge insofar as it would
complicate reconciliation and wouldn't represent a generally suitable
envelope budget feature.  An envelope budgeting feature would necessarily
span multiple financial accounts, potentially across multiple institutions,
and require an entirely different view to be superimposed on the simple
tree structure accounts in GnuCash represent.  The tree structure is
GnuCash is tremendously flexible, but doesn't provide for multiple views.

-----Original Message-----
From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+john.layman=ieee....@gnucash.org>
On Behalf Of Robin Chattopadhyay
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2022 5:05 PM
To: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Problem with missing balance in a parent account
**FINAL POST**

At the risk of sounding defensive (I assure you I'm not, just confused)
what is wrong with what I suggested (using the right-click/context menu on
the placeholder account)? In the screen shot attached, you can see that the
account I've selected is marked as placeholder and I can select the
Reconcile option from that account.

I'm using 4.12 on Ubuntu 22.04.

Robin

On Mon, Oct 10, 2022 at 8:21 AM john <jra...@ceridwen.us> wrote:

Please remember to copy the list on all replies.

If you want the Reconcile button (and, contrary to what Robin
Chatterjay wrote, Actions>Reconcile) to be active for your account,
make it not a placeholder.

Regards,
John Ralls


On Oct 10, 2022, at 7:56 AM, Jay Ridgley <jridgl...@austin.rr.com>
wrote:
Good morning,

After some additional research I believe that the ONLY problem is
the
grayed out reconcile button.
I was confused about the balance showing in the Parent Account,
Placeholder. It shows in the Reconcile Popup window.
The ACTUAL trouble is the grayed out Reconcile Button, that first
appeared for me in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS after the upgrade.
Since I have found the workaround below, it is a matter of
inconvenience. However it would be preferable to have it as it was in
earlier releases (not grayed out).
Regards
Jay

On 10/9/22 15:49, Jay Ridgley wrote:
Good afternoon,
Up until Ubuntu 22.04 The reconcile button was NOT grayed out for
the
type of account I am using (Parent account  and Placeholder). I am
including an example of my account structure here:
Banking Account (Parent Account, Placeholder)
     Checkbook  (sub-account)(contains all checkbook transactions)
     Reserve (sub-account) (contains minimum account balance)
     Separate Purpose (sub account) (rental income & expenses)
     Checkbook Blind (sub-account) (amount held as a pad) All
transactions take place in the sub-accounts. For me it has worked
successfully since I began using GnuCash (over 25 years ago).
I was advised of a workaround that allows me to continue using this
arrangement until it can be fixed/changed to act as it did previously.
It is as follows:
Open Parent account
right click and choose reconcile from the drop down Works just
fine.
Would not be necessary if the Reconcile button was not grayed out.
My question boils down too: Is this change a bug or a "feature" and
can
it be put back the way it was?
Please advise how I should proceed.
Thanks,
Jay
On 10/8/22 07:50, David T. wrote:
That account register doesn't have any transactions in it, so it
won't
have any value either. Is it possible that in the past, you used a
report to see the parent account balances, or even the Chart of Accounts?
And if the account in the screen shot is a placeholder account,
then
you a) wouldn't be able to open the account by double clicking, b) be
told on selecting Open that it was read only, and c) once opened, the
entire register would be greyed out. The screen shot seems to show a
normal account. It also shows a similarly-named tab next to the active
tab.
David T.
On Oct 8, 2022, at 1:51 PM, Jay Ridgley <jridgl...@austin.rr.com
<mailto:jridgl...@austin.rr.com>> wrote:
     On 10/7/22 16:38, john wrote:



             On Oct 7, 2022, at 12:43 PM, Jay Ridgley
             <jridgl...@austin.rr.com> wrote:

             Good Morning,

             BRAND NEW to the list, have been using GnuCash on my
Ubuntu
             system for over 20 years, this is the first problem I
have
             encountered that I have not been able to resolve.

             I discovered that the balance amount that should
appear in
a
             the parent account for my bank is missing. Therefore I am
             unable to do this month's reconcile.

             The account was proper last month, and I was able to
balance
             my checkbook successfully. In the meantime I upgraded to
             Ubuntu 22.04 LTS from 20.04 LTS every thing seems to
running
             properly, otherwise, including GnuCash.

             Today when I tried to reconcile my bank account I
discovered
             the amount of the balance is missing and the reconcile
             button is grayed out(naturally since nothing shows).

             All the sub accounts point to the parent account and
when I
             list my accounts the balance appears there and is
correct.
             What happened and how can I get it back?



         Can you attach (don't inline!) a screenshot of the problem?
It's
         not clear from your description what balance is missing
and
what
         button is disabled.

         Regards,
         John Ralls

     John,

        Sorry it took so long...
     The account shown is the parent and the Balance should NOT be
blank, but
     the sum of 4  account balances.

     Thanks,
     Jay

--
Jay Ridgley
jridgley2 at austin.rr.com
Registered Linux User ID - 9115
https://linuxcounter.net/cert/9115.png
Registered Ubuntu User ID - 23320

_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@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.


_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@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.


--
Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
stephen.m.butle...@gmail.com
kg...@arrl.net
253-350-0166
-------------------------------------------
GnuPG Fingerprint:  8A25 9726 D439 758D D846 E5D4 282A 5477 0385 81D8

_______________________________________________
gnucash-user mailing list
gnucash-user@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.

Reply via email to