adjust balance bug? (1.4.6)

[Dave Peticolas]

Alesh Mustar writes:
> Dave,
> 
> even if my records are correct, there can always be a situation where I
> can loose a piece of paper and not record it and want to adjust the
> balance, but there is no problem of doing this by hand (by using the
> calculator).
> 
> Why not keep the adjust balance in and fix it?

To me, the current incarnation of the adjust balance window doesn't
make any sense. The semantics of the window are "make the account
balance on date X be Y", where X and Y are entered by the user.
Or at least, that's what it tries to do.

But how often do you know what the balance was supposed to be on a
specific date X in the past without knowing the transactions which
contributed to that balance?

And of course, if you change the balance at date X, you will change
all subsequent balances, too. This seems a roundabout way of fixing
what is really wrong, either a missing transaction, or transactions
with wrong amounts.

If you just want to change the balance at the present date with an
adjusting entry, then it's almost as easy to just enter a new
transaction yourself, along with an appropriate account (the
adjust balance dialog doesn't enter a transfer account so the
new transaction is always out of balance).

Anyway, I was under the impression that the adjust balance window
was almost never used. Is that not the case?

dave