Simple Report (Q Mac)

Fred F.

I can't figure out how to do a simple report that shows the starting balance, then all transactions by category (preferable summarized) and then the ending balance. There must be a way. Thanks.

RickO

Reports don't show a balance column because in most cases it doesn't make sense. 

There's really no way to do this in a register since the balance column really only makes sense if the register is sorted by date. If you sort by Category for a given time period, the start and end balances shown will not correspond to actual account balances.

The only workaround I can suggest is to create a Transactions by Category report, export this report to Excel or Numbers, then manually add the start/end balances for the given time period.

Fred F.

Thanks, Rick. That's exactly what I was going to do as a work around. I get what you are saying, but in my case (and maybe others) I'm not looking for a running balance, just starting and ending, but I see what you mean.

RickO

Yeah, you get it. On a Category report, the starting and ending balances are really orthogonal pieces of information. There are also other pieces of information that could be displayed (e.g, account number, account notes, etc.). It's not something that gets asked for a lot. Not that it could not be done, but would make the user interface substantially more complicated and that may be part of the reason why the developers have not implemented such a thing.

Fred F.

Yup. Thanks and Happy New Year.