Re: Stuck Up In My Category Tree

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 19:31, Don Parris <parrisdc(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 16:20, Don Parris <parrisdc(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 05:24, Chetan Suttraway <
>> chetan(dot)suttraway(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Could you please post a self contained test case here?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Chetan
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Chetan,
>>
>> Thanks. I will post something first chance I get - could be tomorrow
>> morning though.
>>
>> I've not made much progress to date, so still need the help. :-(
>>
>
>>
> I now have a work-around. I have a view called amntby_cat that contains
the sums by category, which I pull into a LibreOffice Calc sheet. I then
use a second sheet with a list of the top-level categories, and a series of
formulas to sum all the sub-categories for each top-level category,

I am now curious as to how business accounting databases approach
transaction categories? If I am selling widgets to all 7 continents (as i
learned them), I might have sales as follows:

Antartica - expeditioners love our widgets!
Europe
Germany
Berlin, Mainz
England
London
Brighton
North America
USA
New York
Atlanta
LA
Mexico
Mexico City
etc... ad nauseum.

But I may only want to see sales by continent.

Or more closely related:
Sales
Advertising
Communications
Operations
parts
labor
Equipment

But I May only want to see the figures summed up at the top-level.

How is this issue approached in other cases? Have I taken a bad approach to
my category structure? It appears to be a common approach to categories in
general, but is there a solution that better fits my case?

Thanks,
Don
--
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