Your points regarding account selection are valid. I believe that one or two of the default reports are structured to use "All Asset Accounts" for example (don't ask me which ones; I don't recall at this moment). It might be possible for someone with Scheme skills (not me!) to examine those reports to see how they are constructed, and build out an alternative report that behaves as you wish.
David T. On May 18, 2025, 8:28 PM, at 8:28 PM, David Warren <da...@warren1.net> wrote: >I certainly agree you shouldn't use gnucash (or any other double entry >bookkeeping system) without spending appropriate hours to learn >double-entry bookkeeping. >I also certainly agree that gnucash provides a *rich *set of reporting >tools, and that it is incumbent on the user (one can now use an LLM to >help!) to understand the types of things one might want to use a report >to >do, and there are lots of good reasons to set up and then *save >*reports >that will then be used repeatedly for circumstances the user >understands. > >Having said that, the sole method gnucash appears to allow for *account >selection *on saved reports is the user must *manually *select the >accounts >one wants included in such reports. If the user ever creates/adds a >single >new account, that account will *not *be included in a saved report, at >least in my experience. It would be completely *reasonable* for >gnucash to >also allow users to specify some *logic *for which accounts should be >included in saved reports. Complex logic would probably be quite >difficult >to program, but logic as simple as checkboxes to include/exclude ALL >{income, expense, asset and/or liability} accounts, I am confident to >say >would be *highly *utilized and appreciated by the gnucash user >community. > >On Sun, May 18, 2025 at 10:39 AM Michael or Penny Novack via >gnucash-user < >gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote: > >> > It would be very helpful if (and maybe there already is) there was >a >> > place that would say what would be the usual or common options for >the >> > reports. For example, I think the transaction report should >include >> > all the expense accounts. >> > >> > Just a bit of guidance would be incredibly helpful. >> > >> > I'm sure that there are other reports that would be helpful, but I >> > don't know if I should select everything, or just the asset >accounts, >> > or the income accounts, or.... (and so on). >> >> Misunderstanding. Gnucash is a TOOL for partially automating double >> entry bookkeeping. In terms of how such systems are called, "general >> ledger" >> >> Take ANY Tool, say a hammer. The manual for a hammer might tell you >what >> it is for (drive nails) and how to properly use it (grip, etc.). Out >of >> scope for the hammer manual to teach you "what is a nail used for?" >"why >> would I want to use a nail" etc. >> >> What you are needing is something along the lines of "what is double >> entry bookkeeping?" describing things like what are the usual >reports, >> how are they formatted, etc. Things that are NOT specific to >gnucash. >> In other words, if we are talking about a report such as "Profit and >> Loss", what it looks like, what's included in it, etc. that is >> independent of how the double entry "general ledger" is kept. Thus >the >> report ends up looking the same (same data in it) whether produced by >> gnucash or manually during the process of "closing the books" the >books >> being pen and ink on paper (as it was when I learned ~65 years ago). >> >> Sorry, gnucash makes the work of double entry bookkeeping easier, but >> you still have to learn about double entry bookkeeping. >> >> Michael D Novack >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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. _______________________________________________ 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.